Heritage
by FantasyBard
Summary: Heritage can define a person in more ways than one. No one understands this better than Danielle Kirk and Ashley Pike. Danielle always has taken care of her brother after the death of their father, while Ashley's own ancestry hides a dark secret. For these two women, the choices which they make for their future will ultimately be decided by where they have come from.
1. Danielle

**Thank you for taking the time this story. It's sort of my first foray into Star Trek writing, so please leave a review to let me know how I'm doing. However, I ask that you don't leave any flames, as they will be deleted.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, either the original series or the alternate universe. They are the property of Paramount and the creation of Gene Rodenberry. I am only creating this work of fiction for my own creative satisfaction.**

 **Heritage is rated T for scenes of violence and innuendo.**

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 **Heritage can define a person. Where we come from can have a major impact upon what we will turn out to be. Perhaps no one would understand this better than Danielle Kirk and Ashley Pike.**

 **Danielle Kirk is the daughter of a captain who died a hero's death. Ever since that day, she always believed that her main purpose in life was to take care of her brother.**

 **Ashley Pike is also the daughter of a Starfleet captain, but her ancestry holds a far darker secret than not many are aware of. However, her own innate abilities can make her an unwitting target for prejudice.**

 **These two very different women have been defined by their heritage. But when danger threatens themselves and those which they hold dear, it will ultimately by the choices which they make which will create their future.**

Danielle:

Danielle Kirk would never forget the day when her life changed forever.

It had all started when her mother had unexpectedly gone into labor with her new baby brother. He was early, as the due date was actually a few weeks away. However, the nurse who was staying with her in the waiting room had said that such things were not uncommon, and that her mother and brother would both be fine.

She hadn't really been nervous after being told this. Even her daddy had assured her that everything would be fine. He was on the bridge, but he had promised that he would come down as soon as he was born.

With these assurances, she really had no need to be nervous. On the contrary, she was quite excited at the thought of having another brother to play with. Her older brother George was back on earth staying with relatives. He had never really had much of an appetite for space travel.

So, she was not afraid, believing that everything would turn out all right. And then, the ship had begun shaking. Danielle knew that space travel wasn't always a smooth ride. She had been through her fair share of ion storms and attacks from hostile aliens. They were scary, but they were scary in the same way that a thunderstorm was frightening. There were a lot of loud noises, bright flashes of light and shaking, but it always ended, eventually.

But this time, it felt different. For some reason, Danielle felt as though the shuddering of the ship was more violent and that the explosions seemed to be coming from within the ship itself. This time, she felt more scared that she had ever been before.

Danielle did not know what was going on. She was not alone, as none of the other medical personnel knew what was happening either. Danielle heard snatches of communications, of Romulans attacking the ship and the severe damage which was being wrought on the _USS Kelvin._ The only thing that she clearly remembered was hearing her father's voice over the comm system of the ship, "All decks, this is the Captain speaking, evacuate the ship immediately."

Her father sounded different. Danielle could tell that right away. She had never heard fear in his voice before, but in that announcement to the entire ship, she heard fear and strain. She felt confused and anxious. She wanted to know what was going on. But till, nobody had any answers.

What happened next was all a blur. The nurse who had been looking after her immediately gathered her up, and rushed out into the corridor, where they were met by the doctor and another nurse who had been helping her mother through the labor.

Winona was in a hospital gown, being pushed in a wheelchair. Sweat glistened on her skin from the exhaustion of the contractions. She was even more terrified than Danielle herself in some ways, as she was about to give birth in the midst of an alien attack and with no idea where her husband was or when he would be joining them.

"Get to your designated shuttlecraft, begin evacuation."

"That's George's voice. What's happening?" She begged, looking wildly all around her, as if hoping that she could find the answer from one of the medical personnel.

"We'll deliver it in the shuttle. Go!" said the doctor, as he pushed the wheelchair hurriedly through the corridors of the ship, making their way to the shuttle bay. While doing so, he turned to the nurse who was carrying Danielle. "How is Danielle? Is she all right?"

"I'm fine." Said Danielle, before the nurse could answer. He voice was shaking, but she was determined to at least try and be brave. "What about my mommy? Is she all right? What about my brother?"

"Don't worry, Danielle." Said Winona, trying to sound comforting, even though she was between contractions. "I'm sure that you're father will be joining us soon. Just be a good girl, and do what the doctor and nurse ask you, all right?"

Danielle nodded, as she had no more words to speak.

Suddenly, the communicator that Winona had been carrying beeped urgently. "George." She cried, in relief.

"You're okay, thank god. What about Danni, is she with you?"

Winona glanced up to Danielle, and said, "Yes, she's here, George."

"Good. I have medical shuttle 37 standing by. Get to it now. Can you do that?"

"Yes." Winona gasped out, feeling the onset of another contraction.

"Everything's gonna be okay." Said George, doing his best to reassure them amidst the direness of the situation. "Do exactly as I say, shuttle 37."

"George, its coming, our baby." said Winona, desperately. George had to get there in time, he had to see the birth of their third child. "It's coming now."

"I'm on my way." George told them, before he cut the transmission off.

Danielle and her mother arrived in the shuttle bay with the medical team only a few moments later. The cavernous room was a scene of people running in what seemed to be every direction at once, responding to their captain's call to evacuate the ship. Winona suddenly let loose a terrible scream, and Danielle hid her face in the shoulder of the nurse that was carrying her. She was a sensitive soul, and hated seeing anyone that she cared about going through such pain. And the pain was even worse for Winona because uncertainty still seemed to hang over all of it.

Several seconds of groaning and straining later, the contraction passed. "That was a big one."

"Just keep breathing." Said the doctor, "You'll be fine."

"And the baby too, right? And my daughter?"

"And them, too, of course." said the doctor, after only a moment's hesitation.

They arrived at the shuttle, and hurried inside. The nurse who was carrying Danielle deposited her gently on a soft chair across from where they were putting her mother onto the bio-bed of the shuttle. The nurse told her, gently but firmly, to remain there and be quiet while she helped Winona. Danielle nodded obediently, and tried to be patient. She knew that it was the only thing that she could do right now to help her mother. But that didn't mean that she didn't squeeze her eyes shut and covered her ears against the sounds of her labor.

That also meant that she missed the crucial conversation that took place at the front of the shuttle. One of the medical officers rushed to the front of the shuttle and began to start up its engines. He heard George's urgent voice through the comm., "Captain to shuttle 37, are my wife and daughter onboard?"

"Yes, sir. They are."

The next words seemed to be torn from George's mouth, as though the very act of speaking them caused him nothing less than physical pain. "I need you to go now, do you hear me?"

"We're waiting on you, sir." said the officer.

"No, just go, take off immediately. That's an order." said George, forcefully, in a tone that held no argument.

The officer paused for half a second, before he said, "Yes, sir." With a great deal of reluctance, he punched in the appropriate commands, and the shuttle's engines roared, taking off from the shuttle bay of the _Kelvin_ and flying into space.

The sudden motion of the shuttle jolted Winona. She jerked up from where she had been lying down, and she cried to the pilot, "Wait, we can't go yet." Her voice was high with panic and fear. "Please stop."

"Mommy, where's daddy?" said Danielle, who hadn't heard the exchange, but she had no idea why the shuttle was taking off without her father. "He was supposed to be here, wasn't he? What happened to him? Where is he?"

Winona shook her head mutely, unable to answer her daughter. "George, the shuttle's leaving." She said, desperately into her communicator, "Where are you?"

There was anguish in Winona's voice that caught Danielle's attention. She looked over at her mother, the fear evident in her eyes. It was only at this moment that she began to understand that something terrible was happening to her father, something that neither her mother nor her father had anticipated. Years later, she would remember this as the moment when the security of her life had been forever altered.

"Sweetheart, listen to me. I'm not gonnna be there." George's voice was filled with pain and desperation.

The full meaning of this statement crashed over both Danielle and Winona with all the force of a tidal wave. Winona completely lost any control that she might have had, sobbing with both the pain of her labor and the fact that her husband was about to die. "No."

"This is the only way you'll survive." George said.

"Please don't stay on the ship. You have to be here."

"The shuttles will never make it if I don't fight them off."

"George, I can't do this without you."

Danielle had never felt so utterly small and powerless as she had while listening to this conversation. Of course, she was only five years old; there admittedly wasn't a great deal that she could do. But she still hated the feeling of helplessness which gripped her. Why did things have to end like this?

Winona's sobs of grief turned suddenly to cries of pain. Her labor was starting in earnest now. The next few minutes would always be a little hazy in Danielle's memory, the scrams of her mother, the bright lights of the shuttle, and the distant sounds and flashes of a fire fight outside the shuttle all swam together.

The next thing that Danielle would clearly remember was the first cry of her baby brother as he entered the world. Her mother called her over, for even if she was emotionally and physically exhausted, she still wanted her daughter to meet her new son before anyone else. "Come over here, Danielle. I want you to see this."

Danielle hurried over to he mother, and clambered up to the side of the bed, to look at her new brother's tiny face. "What is it?" George asked, over the comm.

"It's a boy." Said Winona, tears of joy and sadness mingling together with each other.

"A boy?" said George, and for a split second, it seemed as though his imminent death was no longer the first thing on his mind. It was merely joy that, for the third time, he had become a father. "Tell me about him."

"He's beautiful."

"He really is, daddy." Said Danielle, as he gazed down at her brother.

George's attention now moved to his daughter. "Danni, sweetheart, I'm so sorry that I'm not going to be there for you, that I won't be able to watch you grow up. Promise me that you'll look after your brother for me."

"I promise, daddy." Said Danielle, for the first time, feeling herself beginning to cry.

"George, you should be here."

Over the comm, she heard the computer on the _Kelvin_ saying _"Impact alert_. _"_ But George tried to ignore it. "What are we gonna call him?'

"We can name him after your father."

George laughed, a strained sound that betrayed the fact that his heart was breaking. "Tiberius, you kiddin' me? No, that's the worst. Let's name him after your dad. Let's call him Jim."

"Jim." Repeated Winona, almost smiling, though the tears were still streaking her face, "All right, Jim it is."

There was a terrible moment of silence, before George asked over the comm, desperate to hear the voice of his wife and daughter for a few seconds longer. "Sweetheart, Danielle, can you hear me?"

"We can hear…" said Winona.

"I love you both so much." George's voice had become distorted and distant, as the transmission started to break up. "I love you so much."

Static took over the comm, before it went completely silent. At almost the exact same moment, they began to feel the aftershocks of a massive explosion, as the _Kelvin_ smashed into the Romulan ship, erupting in an inferno of destruction.

Winona broke down sobbing, cradling her two children against her as though they were now the only life-line she had from being lost in a sea of despair. Danielle was also crying now. She may not have known all of the details of what had just happened; she really didn't need to. Only one thing did she truly understand and that was enough: her father was dead. Her life would never be the same again.

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Hours passed. Danielle and her mother both held each other and cried. But Winona, exhausted by birth and death, soon fell into a deep, merciful sleep. However, Danielle remained wide awake. She was not so young that she did not understand death. She knew that her father was never coming back. As her mother slept and lost in her grief, she felt terribly alone.

Until she heard little Jim starting to fuss in his incubator. She glanced into the glass case, wondering what he, as a baby, could possibly be sad about. Until she began to wonder; was he lonely, too?

The thought made her ask one of the nurses in the shuttle to open the incubator so that she could hold him. The first moment she held him in her arms was a moment that was indelibly marked on her memory. Jim stopped crying almost as soon as he was placed in her arms. He looked up at her with eyes so blue that they seemed a mirror reflection of her own. Danielle had a strange feeling that Jim, even if he was just a newborn, knew that he was safe with her.

It was in this moment that she first felt the strength of her love for Jim, and a desire to protect him. She had already made her father a promise, but now, in the private intimacy of this moment, she made a promise that came straight from her own heart. "I promise you that I'll always be watching over you, Jim. You'll never, ever be alone."

Danielle Kirk would always remember the day when her life changed forever. It had been painted with the extremes of life and death; it would be the day when she found her focus and her purpose from many years to come.

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 **Please, read and review.**


	2. Ashley

Ashley:

They had always known that this day would come. Most of the Deviants in his family had started to exhibit their gifts around Ashley's age, and Christopher and Natalie Pike had known that their daughter would have some form of Deviant ability only a few hours after she had been born.

However, they hadn't exactly expected her to show her gifts in quite this way. The incident that had occurred in school that day had earned her a suspension and a grounding from her parents. Ashley, of course, had protested this multiple times, before retiring to her room to sulk.

She was stubborn. There could be no other word to describe it. She got it from her mother's side of the family, at least, that's what he always told himself. However, it fell to him to have the conversation that he had been waiting to have with her for ten years.

He entered the room, where his daughter was sitting on the bed. She had inherited the dark, brown hair and pert nose of her mother, but the blue-gray eyes were all his. He sat down beside her. She only glanced at him for a few seconds before going back to staring at the floor.

Finally, Christopher said, "So, Ashley, do you want to tell me what happened this afternoon during recess?"

"It wasn't my fault, dad." Said Ashley. "That rotten bully, Joey, was beating up some of the younger kids. I tried standing up to him, like you told me I should do, but he… he laughed at me, and he teased me for being a Deviant. He called me… he called me a freak."

Christopher had to restrain the protective anger that flared up in him when he heard this. Even after nearly 300 years, the prejudice against Deviants could still be blindingly cruel. When that prejudice was directed against his little girl, his little Princess, it was one of the few things that got him truly angry.

Ashley continued her story. "After that, I just sort of lost it. I got so mad. I wanted Joey to know what it felt like to be laughed at. And so I set his pants on fire."

"Yes, we've heard this part from your teacher. The flames that appeared on his lower body seemed to come from your hands."

"He was only on fire for a few seconds, daddy. He wasn't even hurt that badly. I'm not sorry I did it, either. I would do it again if I had the chance."

"Ashley." said Christopher, sternly, "I'm not here to talk to you about that part."

Ashley, who had been expecting another lecture, was a little confused by this. "You're not?"

"No, I came to ask you how you actually managed to set fire to Joey, without using anything but your mind?"

Ashley shrugged. "I don't know. It just sort of happened: it's really no different than all the other times I've been able to do it."

Christopher raised an eyebrow. "All the other times? How long have you been able to summon fire out of thin air?"

"Well, it's the first time with fire, but I can do the same thing with water. A few months ago, I discovered that I could do a lot of things with water. I can make it float in the air, and create these funny shapes. It's really cool."

"How do you think you can do it?"

Ashley's face scrunched up in concentration. "I'm not really sure how to explain it. A few weeks ago, my science teacher was talking about how the universe is made of these tiny building blocks called mol-li-cules, I think. After I heard that, it made a little more sense. I can sense those building blocks, sometimes so well that I can even see them. I can control them and make them do things if I concentrate hard enough. I think that's what happened today with Joey. I was so mad at him, that I was able to make the air around him heat up and that was when the fire happened."

Christopher took a deep breath and said, "Okay, Princess, I want you to listen very carefully to what I'm about to tell you. You know what it means when I talk about Deviants, don't you? That we're the descendents of Augments who had to hide their special abilities in the aftermath of the Eugenics Wars, right?" Ashley nodded. She had heard that story many times before. "Good. Now, I think that I told you that there have been some people in our family over the years who have special powers as a result of that. I always used to tell you about your great grandfather, how he was able to move objects with his mind."

"Yes." said Ashley, eagerly, "You always said that one day, I would have the same ability."

Christopher smiled. "Well, not exactly. All Deviants have a specific, enhanced ability. Even though the Deviant gene runs in the family, whatever the ability might be is never easy to predict. Your great-grandfather was a telekinetic, but it appears that you have inherited some sort of elemental control."

"Is that what happened today?" Ashley asked. Christopher nodded. "But, why don't you have anything? Shouldn't you be able to shoot lasers out of your eyes or something?"

He laughed. "Unfortunately, the Deviant gene only shows up every third or fourth generation. I'm afraid that it skipped over my father and me."

Ashley patted her father on the hand and said, "That's okay, father. You don't need any super-powers. You're already cool."

"Thank you, princess. That makes me feel a lot better. But, you also have to understand something very important. Now, that your powers have positively manifested, a few things are going to start to change. You're going to have to start learning to control your powers, so that you can use them safely. You also have to know that there are some people who don't like Deviants. There might be some people who don't think your powers aren't so cool. They might even be afraid of you."

Ashley frowned. "Why would they be afraid?"

Christopher had to take a moment to consider how best to respond to this innocent question. He couldn't tell her the real reason. She was too young to understand the complex lineage of fear, hatred, and prejudice that overshadowed the struggle of the Deviants in their fight for equality. Nor was she old enough to know those emotions had roots that went even further back to a violent and bloody war, wherein both sides had been to blame.

She was not ready to hear the story of her ancestor, one of the most controversial figures of the Eugenics Wars. The names of Khan Noonien Singh and his wife and co-leader, Callista Ahern were names that had been slandered and vilified, lauded and admired by turns throughout history. For Christopher, he didn't want his daughter to have biased view of these two people. He would have to wait until she was older.

"Sometimes, people can be afraid of what they don't understand, or of what they perceive as different. It's human nature. Which is why Deviants and Metas need to show all those people that that they're wrong."

Ashley hung her head. "Is that why I'm being punished, because I used my powers when I shouldn't have?"

"You're being punished because you attacked another child during school." He lowered his voice to furtive whisper, and said, "However, just between the two of us, Joey is getting a far more severe punishment then you are, and thanks to you, I doubt that he'll be bullying anyone smaller than him ever again."

"So, when will I know when I should use my powers and when I shouldn't?"

"You'll learn, Ashley. This is really the start of a whole new way of life for you. But you don't have to be afraid; I'll be here to help you."

Ashley smiled at him and gave him a big hug, the kind which only a daughter who has complete faith in her father can give. "I know that, dad. You're always there for me."

Christopher couldn't help but laugh as he embraced her back. "I am, Princess. And I'll always try to be there for you, I promise."

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 **Thanks for reading. Please take a moment to leave a review.**


	3. Siblings

**I want to thank everyone who has read or reviewed this story. It has been a new experience for me to post in this fandom, but so far, it has been an adventure.**

 **Just a few notes on this chapter. It was inspired from a scene in one of the Star Trek comics which take place in the new timeline. I have read varying accounts as to whether Frank is actually Jim's stepfather or uncle. I have gone with the idea that he is Jim's uncle, just because that seemed to fit best with the scene that I ended up writing.**

 **That is all for now. I hope that you enjoy this next chapter, as we explore a little bit more of the deep bond that exists between Jim and his sister, Danielle**

Siblings:

Danielle had always felt that it was responsibility to keep her family together. This had not been an easy task in the years since her father had died. Their mother was frequently gone for months at a time, sometimes off-planet, always seeming to be farthest away when her children needed her the most. During those absences, it was Winona's brother, Frank, who looked after Danielle and her two brothers.

Frank was probably not the wisest choice of guardian. He was a difficult man to get along with under the best of circumstances, being easily roused to anger and dangerously impatient. Such a person was not the best choice to look after children, especially children of the Kirk persuasion.

As such, it was Danielle who often took it upon herself to look after the well-being of her younger brothers, but the the dynamic between George and Frank had become increasingly fraught with tension and antagonism. The situation had been growing worse in recent months. Danielle had been aware of this. But not even she would have expected that George would one day simply have enough and decide to leave altogether, to find his own way in the outside world.

His departure had devastated Jim. He had looked up to George, wanted to be like him in every way. George had been a link to their father, as George had several clear and vivid memories that he had often shared with his little brother. Jim had told Danielle that when he heard those stories, it was almost like he could see and hear his dad speaking, and that he could know him, if only a little. Now, that precious connection was gone.

Danielle had also been affected by George's departure. The responsibility of raising and protecting Jim was now resting more heavily than ever on her shoulders. As the eldest, she had always done her best to keep the family together. She couldn't help but feel as though she had failed.

And now, one near fatal accident had brought home to Danielle just how precarious their position was if she and Jim didn't stick together.

The incident occurred a few weeks after George had left. Jim had essentially stolen the car which Uncle Frank kept in the old garage. Driving at insane speeds across the dirt roads of Iowa, he had been involved in a chase with a police officer, which had ended with Jim inadvertently driving the the car over into ravine. Jim had barely managed to bail out before he was killed.

Danielle's emotions were torn. What Jim had done had been incredibly reckless and dangerous. He was hardly tall enough to see over the dashboard of the car. If he hadn't driven it into a ravine, he probably would have gotten into an accident in some other outlandish fashion.

What's more, Jim had completely wrecked the car which their father had been working on for years before he had died. He had intended to give it to her once she had been old enough to get her license. So, it wouldn't have been a surprise if Danielle's ire had matched that of her uncle that evening when she arrived home and learned all that had happened.

However, her sympathy did not rest with her Uncle Frank, especially when she heard the exchange that he was having with the officer. "What do you mean, beyond repair?" Frank angrily demanded of the officer.

"A recovery crew is gathering the pieces of the car from the ravine now, sir. But there is not enough left to restore it to its previous condition." The officer looked over at Jim, and then back at Frank. "As the registered owner, you are entitled to file a grievance, but because you are the boy's legal guardian..."

The officer trailed off when he saw the enraged look on Frank's face. It was almost as though Frank would have liked very much to press charges against Jim. And Jim didn't make things any easier when he impulsively spoke up. "It's not even my uncle's car! It belonged to my dad before he died and my sister-!"

"Jimmy, shut up!" snarled Frank, "You're lucky I don't throw _you_ into the canyon after it!"

"Uncle Frank, Jim could have died." Danielle finally spoke up, "Doesn't that at least matter to you a little bit more than the cost of that car?"

Winona had been off-planet when the accident had happened, but Frank's angry message had summoned her quickly back. Though she was now standing with a protective arm around Jim's shoulders, it was doubtful that she would be of much help in defending her son against Frank's anger. "Please, Frank." Winona tried, "Ever since his brother left, Jimmy's been-"

But Frank wasn't interested in hearing anything from Danielle or Winona in Jim's defense. "Winona, don't, and Danielle, shut up. Get him inside _._ He doesn't leave his room until I say so."

Winona pulled Jim away before he said anything else that could potentially get him into even more trouble. Danielle stayed outside, listening silently Frank and he officer finished their exchange, which didn't leave her uncle in any better state of mind. She was staying for one very specific purpose; she wasn't done trying to defend Jim, and she wanted to be sure that her uncle didn't try to get away from her as he had tried to do so many times.

The officer left, and Frank went into the house, Danielle following him closely. "Don't you think that you were a little hard on Jim?" She asked him, once they were in the living room.

"Hard on him?" Frank said, who seemed incredulous that she could have even asked such a question. "That boy totaled a car that was worth a fortune. It was irresponsible and stupid. That was _my_ car, and he should have known better than to take it for a joy ride, especially when he knew that I was about to sell it."

Danielle crossed her arms. " _I've_ also driven that car of your's, Uncle Frank. And in case your forgetting, that car was supposed to be mine. I'm sixteen now. It was dad's idea for me to have it when I was old enough."

"Just because your sixteen doesn't mean that your old enough to have a car, especially one like that. For all I know, you might have totaled I like your brother did. Besides, the car was in my name, and I could do whatever I damn well liked with it without having to ask permission from you."

Danielle did her best to hold back her temper. That car had been one of the last physical links that she had to remember her dad by. She had even hoped to pass onto Jim himself when he was old enough. And Frank had just dismissed any such claim as though it were completely unimportant. It hurt her deeply, but she tried to bury her own feelings. Jim had to be her main concern right now.

"Uncle Frank, you might be partially responsible for what happened today. George ran away because he couldn't cope with you anymore, and now you've started treating Jim in the exact same way. Did you honestly expect him to start behaving any other way, when the only male influence in his life begins to constantly insult and berate him?"

"Don't start talking your psycho mumbo-jumbo to me, Danni." Frank warned, "Jim has one very simple problem, and that's he's to soft. He's going to have to learn to man up in this house. He needs to learn to respect _me_ and _my_ rules. Until he can do that, I'm not going to ease up on him."

"Man up? You really think that's Jim's problem? Jim didn't have any problems following your rules until George left. You're the one who drove George away with your so-called rules. If you honestly think that Jim will be able to respect you after that, I highly doubt that you'll be satisfied."

"You listen to me, young lady." Frank snarled, "You seem to have forgotten something very important, so I'll explain it to you. It's only because of me that you and your brothers even have a roof over your heads. It's only because of me that you're even going to school. Everything that you are or ever will be is because of _me_. Without me, you and your brother would be nothing. In fact, nothing is all that you'll end up being as long as you keep trying to imitate your precious, dead father!"

It was at this moment, that Winona came into the room, and she had heard the last part of Frank's rant. Danielle looked over at her, hoping for her support, hoping that she would say something to defend her and Jim from Frank's constant insinuations. To her credit, Winona did stricken by what she had heard Frank say. It hurt her as much as it hurt Danielle, but it also brought back so many memories that she tried every day so hard to forget. And in the process of trying to forget, she could sometimes forget the duty that she had to her own children.

Winona was helpless when it came to trying to control Frank. His personality was simply to strong, and there were times when it seemed that there was no more fight in her. That part of her died the same day her husband had. She wanted desperately to avoid conflict, to try and appeal to both parties. But in trying to do so, her next words sounded to Danielle's ears like the ultimate insult. "Danielle, please, stop trying to bother your uncle. Just try to get along with him."

Danielle could hardly believe her ears. Right now, in this moment, the one thing which she and her brother needed was support. George was gone, he had been driven away by Frank's unending, bullying attitude. Winona had just heard for herself that Frank didn't care in the least for Danielle, Jim or even what their future would be. She should have been the first to defend them against his words, but she hadn't.

She didn't bother answering her mother, but the look of wounded hurt and anger that she speared Winona with was more than enough. Instead, she turned on Frank, her voice cold and determined. "Uncle Frank, you's wrong. _You're_ the one who is nothing, because you are nothing more than a coward and a bully. I see it now. The reason why you can't control George, Jim or even me is cause you know, even at our young age, you will never be as good as us."

Frank bristled, his eyes flashing with anger. "You think that you can talk like that to me, Danni? Go to your room, young lady. If you're lucky, maybe I'll let you out before your brother."

"Fine with me. I don't have anything more to say to you."

Winona tried following Danielle, a pleading look on her face. "Danielle, please, listen to me."

Danielle turned and glared coldly at her mother. "No, mom. You listen. If you think that I will ever forget how many times you've just stood aside and let Frank walk all of over us, than you're wrong. I understand now. If anyone is going to protect Jim, the only person I can trust to do that is me."

She didn't stay to hear the protest that Winona would try to give, but turned and hurried up to her room. Once she got there, she slammed the door shut, and leaned heavily against it. She took several deep breaths, willing herself to calm down and think clearly.

In the process of trying to do that, however, she heard the tell-tale signs of someone clambering out onto the roof from the bedroom next door. Despite all of the heavy emotion which she had gone through that night, she could not help but smile as she figured out who was making those sounds.

She went over to her window and pried it open. Night had fallen over the cornfields of Iowa, and the sky above was sprayed with literally hundreds of stars. Glancing over to her left, she saw that Jim had crawled out from the window of his own room, and was now perched on the roof. "You know, I don't know if you're supposed to be out here." She called up to him. "You're supposed to be in you room."

Jim looked down at her and grinned. "So are you by the looks of it. What did you do to earn solitary confinement?"

"I was speaking up for you, actually. Uncle Frank didn't take to kindly to it."

Jim shrugged. "The view's better out here. Want to join me? It's probably a lot more exciting that being confined to your bedroom.

Danielle was usually the first one to push obeying the rules with her siblings, but she could be rebellious when she chose to be. "Why not? It's not like Uncle Frank can do anything worse to either of us."

She opened the window up further and climbed out. She joined Jim, and for a few minutes, they gazed up at the starry sky. Finally, Danielle broke the silence. "You know, I am not defending all of your actions. What you did today was stupid, Jim, like life-threatening stupid. You could have been killed, in fact, you almost were. Why did you do it?"

Jim looked down. He didn't care about how angry Frank had been regarding the accident. But he hated disappointing Danielle. "I don't know." he admitted, "George told me that he was selling the car, right before he left. I knew how much that car meant to you, Danni, how much it meant to dad. And Frank was going to sell it just so he could get a quick profit out of it. It wasn't fair, Danielle. It just wasn't. Frank was making me wash the car too, as though all of it weren't hurtful enough. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and well, I saw that Frank had left the keys in the car, so I thought..."

"So you thought that you would go for a joy ride just to spite him, am I right?"

Jim nodded, looking more than a little guilty and ashamed. He realized now that he had made a mistake. If only so that his sister wouldn't be mad at him, he would have taken it back. "Yeah, I guess so. I just wanted to show Uncle Frank that he couldn't control me, that he couldn't order me around anymore now that George is gone."

"You wanted to make a statement that he couldn't hurt you." said Danielle, "Considering that you were hauled back here by an officer of the law and that Frank ended up sending you to your room, that obviously worked out wonderfully for you." She noticed that Jim looked genuinely ashamed and humbled by her rebuke. Softening her tone, she continued, "Look Jim, it's not that I don't think you should stand up to Frank, but not like this. You need to think before you do things like this. I've already lost George, I couldn't bear to lose you to so soon after. Promise me that you'll try not to do anything like this in the future."

Jim nodded. "I promise." There was a slight pause, before he said, in a genuinely apologetic tone, "I'm sorry I wrecked the car, Danni. I know how much you were looking forward to having it."

Danielle allowed herself a small smile, looking over at her brother. "Oh, Jim, I may be disappointed about the car, but when it comes down to it, I'm just glad that you're safe. Besides, seeing as how Uncle Frank was going to sell it, it might be for the best. I'd rather it was destroyed by you than sold by him to someone else."

Jim was silent for a moment, bitterness all to evident in his eyes. "I hate him, Uncle Frank. I didn't know I did until George left, but now I do."

"You shouldn't." said Danielle, quietly, after a moment. "You shouldn't hate him."

Jim sat up and looked over at her in disbelief. "How can you say that, Danni? After the things he said to you, to me? I can see why he would get angry with me, but you didn't do anything wrong. He punished you the same as me just for speaking your mind. How can you not be angry at him?"

"I _am_ angry at him. I'm also angry at mom and George. That's only natural. The tricky part is not letting that anger fester inside of you. Otherwise, you'll end up just like Uncle Frank, angry, spiteful and bitter. I know that you're better than he is, Jim. I know it."

Jim made a sour face. "So, what should I do? Just let him walk all over me and you?"

"What you should do is not let him get to you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you can't start to believe the things that he says about you, that your nothing, or stupid, or small. You can't let him get the better of you. Believe me, I make it sound easy, but it's really a challenge for me to." She sighed. "We don't have an easy life, Jim. Ever since dad died, it's always been difficult for mom to really show her feelings."

"We remind her to much of dad." said Jim, sadly, "And she doesn't want to be reminded of him, so she tries to stay as far away as she can."

Danielle would have liked very much to say that her brother was wrong, but she knew deep down that he was right. Winona did try, but there were just times when Danielle felt as though she looked straight through her and Jim, the reminders of the husband she had lost.

"Yeah, I know. That's why her job is so convenient for her. It takes her off-planet so much. Now that George is gone, it might get even tougher for the two of us. But, we'll make it through."

Jim looked at Danielle's face, so calm and confidant in the way she believed in the future. She wanted so much to give him some hope for the future, to help him believe that he could do the great things which she knew he would one day be capable of. Sometimes, she didn't know if Jim truly understood just how gifted he was. She could only hope that he believed she wouldn't be leaving him as so many other members of his family had done.

After a few more minutes of staring up at the stars, Jim said, "You think that we'll ever make it out of here, Danielle?"

"Yes, Jim." said Danielle, with a smile. "I know that we will. Iowa is just to small for people like us." She looked at Jim, and put a hand on his shoulder. "I don't know how we'll go about it yet, Jim. But, we'll make it through this, I promise."

They didn't say anymore , but continued lying side by side, staring up into the endless, starry sky.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading and please leave a review.**


	4. Deviants

**Thanks for continuing to read. We are introduced to a little more of the story behind the idea of the Deviants, as well as getting to see at least one of them in action. Enjoy!**

Deviants:

Ashley Pike was on the run. She had been running for awhile. The air of the tropical alien planet was humid and sticky. The sweat was making her clothing cling to her. Unfortunately, slowing down wasn't an option. She could hear the predators behind her, and it sounded like they were coming closer. She had already burned two and iced another. But there were at least three more on her tail.

She had hoped that by running, she would be able to conserve some of her energy. However, enhanced endurance didn't mean that she could keep on going forever. If she couldn't lose those predators, she would have to face them again head on.

Her mind was racing, trying to figure out a way that she could buy herself a few seconds while she was on the run. She reached out to the water molecules that were hanging thickly in the air. She could feel them reacting to her commands, forming themselves into a solid mass within a few seconds. She paused in her run, and concentrated, forming the mass of water into a large, ball-like structure.

She glanced behind her, trying to judge from which direction the monsters were coming. She waited for the right moment, and when the large, scaly lizard creature burst into the clearing, she was ready for him, or her, or whatever it was supposed to be. It resembled a large lizard, with dark green scales, blue spots and a wicked-looking tale that had spikes on the end of it. The lizard let out a roar, opening it's mouth to reveal huge, sharp teeth. Ashley, aiming her ball of water at the mouth, made a throwing motion with her hand. The ball of water hit the lizard in the mouth with all the force of a large cannonball, flinging it back several feet and knocking it into a tree. The sickening crunch and mangled body of the lizard made her hope that she had taken at least one of her hunters out of the pursuit.

Ashley didn't have very long to appreciate her victory, though. The breaking of branches and distant roaring indicated that more of the creatures were coming swiftly closing in on her.

"Really?" She muttered in frustration as she turned and started running again. She briefly wondered if standing and fighting would help, especially if she made use of both her abilities. The down side of that would be trying to manipulate one element was tiring enough. Trying to utilize both fire and water at this stage would only drain her completely.

Nonetheless, fire by itself was starting to look like an attractive option. Those creatures were coming closer, and Ashley knew that her own enhanced energy and endurance was starting to flag. The time for decisive action came when she ran straight into a rising rock face, creating what was essentially a dead end.

"Perfect." She muttered, sarcastically, as she whirled around to face the oncoming lizard creatures.

Two of the lizard creatures suddenly came barreling through the tree cover. Reacting on instinct, Ashley held up both hands, and a stream of fire immediately blasted out of thin in front of her, slamming straight into the creatures. However, in her split second reaction, she had overestimated her own strength. The blaze came out much hotter and stronger than she had bee anticipating. It not only incinerated the lizards, the force of the blast knocked her back several feet, and she slammed into the rock face behind her.

The heat from the flames was so intense that she had to shield her face. As the ashes began to settle, she became aware of an even more unsettling fact. She had used to much of her power. She could no longer feel or see the reactions of the molecules in the air around her. That was the basis of her abilities; without it, she was completely defenseless.

Things started to get even worse when an even louder roar tore through the forest and yet another lizard monster burst into the clearing. It was twice as large as those that had been pursuing her, and it plowed through the burnt remains of it's two compatriots without so much as pausing.

In one last desperate attempt, Ashley tried to call on either fire or water, but all she got was a measly spark for the one and a few small drops on the other. The lizard continued forward undaunted, sniffing and growling. It had obviously already picked her out as it's next meal.

Ashley was already backed up against the rock face. She had no room to maneuver, no room to fight. She was finished. The lizard monster let loose another loud growl, and raised one it's huge claws to stab her in the stomach.

However, at the very last moment, the lizard froze, and than vanished. The rock face and the surrounding forest also disappeared, replaced by the paneled, dark, gray walls of the holodeck.

Ashley had known from the start that it had all been a simulation. It still hadn't stopped the adrenaline from pumping through her bloodstream, nor had it kept her heart from pounding out of her chest. She scrambled to her feet, and leaned on her knees, gasping for breath and trying to regain her sense of equilibrium. "I hate lizards." She muttered to herself, as she fought to gain control of himself once more.

From above, an electronic voice spoke, dispassionate and detached. "Test simulation complete. Please proceed to the viewing platform."

"Only to gladly." She said, as she straightened and headed for the doors of the holodeck, where her parents and her instructor were waiting.

Ashley was on earth, at The Federation Institute for Deviant Affairs. The Institute served as the political center for Deviants throughout the Federation. It's purpose was to protect those with special gifts, as well as fostering understanding between normal humans and other alien species.

It was also a training ground. Here, many Deviants received their first training in controlling and using their abilities. That was why exactly why Ashley was here. Though her powers had manifested themselves at the age of ten, and she was now sixteen, it was only now that her serious training would begin. This was actually a normal course for many Deviants; though powers could develop early in childhood, puberty was usually the time when training became necessary.

Her parents had been watching her simulation from the viewing platform, along with the man who would be her instructor for the next six months, Isaac Fullerton. Her mother, Natalie, was the first to greet her with a relieved hug. "Oh, sweetie, I was so worried."

"Mom, it was just a simulation. I was never in any danger."

"One day, you'll have children, Ashley. And then you'll understand." said Natalie.

"But we are proud of you, princess." said Christopher, with a smile. "Isaac here kept telling us that he was surprised that you held out for so long."

"Really?" said Ashley, "How long was I actually in there? It felt like hours."

"Actually 27 minutes, 14 seconds, to be exact. Quite impressive for someone who is just a beginner. You have a lot of strength on your side, Ashley, not to mention some creativity in trying to get away from the creatures who were pursuing you." said Isaac.

"Still have a problem with controlling yourself, though." said Christopher, "Let's not forget that you nearly blew up one of the computer labs on the _Baltimore_."

Ashley groaned, as this was the umpteenth time her father had brought up that embarrassing story. "Dad, that was an accident. I didn't mean to set that console on fire, and you will recall that I did manage to put it out."

"By dousing the flames with water, which caused a chain reaction throughout the entire system, and caused a power outage across half the deck."

Ashley groaned. "Are you going to tell that story to every guy that I date in the future?"

"You're the one who keeps giving us the material, princess." said Christopher. "Actually,we should be grateful that it wasn't something worse that gave us a clue you were ready to begin your training."

"And, I do believe that you have been through quite enough today, dear." said Natalie, giving her husband a look.

"Yeah, that rainforest nearly drained me. I'll go take a shower and meet you in the atrium."

With that, Ashley turned away from them and went towards the direction of the locker rooms. She left Christopher, Natalie, and Isaac in the viewing room of the holodeck. Isaac turned to the two parents with a reassuring smile. "Well, you were right about her. Your daughter is incredibly gifted. Her abilities are strong, and mostly untapped." He glanced at his PADD, which contained the final readings of Ashley's tests. "Her score is high for someone so young, but considering her ancestry, that's hardly surprising."

The score, of which Isaac was referring to, was a reference point that determined how strong Deviant abilities were in an individual. This system had only been developed within the last fifty years, as advanced research had finally allowed scientists to fully map out Deviant genomes. Until that time, trying to determine the strength, or even the presence of Deviant abilities had been mainly guess work.

Deviants, themselves, were the descendants of the Augments from the Eugenics Wars, which had ravaged the planet in the early years of the twentieth century. The history of the Eugenics Wars themselves was sketchy and incomplete. However, the origins of the Augments was relatively well known. In the process of augmenting the human genetic structure to create the ultimate soldiers of war, there had been unexpected mistakes, giving those some subjects superhuman abilities. They had deviated from the original plan; thus, in the years and centuries following the end of the Eugenics and subsequent Third World War, the term Deviant had become the description for all who showed signs of powers beyond the ability of regular humans.

The Deviant strain had carried over into the descendants of the Augments themselves. Deviants normally possessed some sort of physical enhancement that came down from their Augment ancestors, whether it was the ability to heal faster than others or to have a greater endurance and strength. But they also possessed a unique power of the mind, whether it was the power to control an element of nature, like fire, or the more subtle gift of being able to read minds and influence emotions.

Isaac himself was capable of manipulating and controlling anything that had to do with wind. He was in his early fifties, with graying brown hair and skin that was just starting to show the age of wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His eyes were light blue in color, and normally they showed the hint of a wry wisdom that had come from long years teaching and leading the Deviant community. However, when he felt the need to call upon his strength, those eyes could become very intense and frightening, very quickly. One did not upset an Elemental Deviant lightly, especially when he was quite capable of sucking the air out of your lungs, and use it to knock you through a wall.

Such was the man who would be teaching Ashley over the next few months to make the fullest use of her power. She had already come to expect that he was going to work her hard, but in the end, she would learn more from him in six months than she would in a lifetime with anyone else.

"Overall, she managed to achieve a score of 6.5 on these initial tests." said Isaac.

"Considering that the average score on these first tests most often barely breaks above a four is saying something." said Christopher, who was obviously quite proud of his daughter.

"It's not just that the fact that she is a beginner." said Isaac, "It's also the fact that she can control both fire and water so effectively. Most of my students only ever have one Element in their arsenal. She still can't control the fire very well, hardly surprising, but that will come with time. Where she will really begin to face difficulties is trying to utilize them both, either at the same time, or in quick succession to each other. That is what really threw her off in there. However, given enough time and training, I wouldn't be surprised if her score could get progressively higher."

The three of them had exited the viewing room by this point, and were walking down a long hallway lined on both sides by training rooms of various sizes and uses. A few of them were being utilized for training, and walking past, they could see students working on lifting objects of various sizes with their minds or trying to hit moving targets with what appeared to be electric-based energy, erupting from their hands in flashes of brilliant lightening. It hardly was strange to them; by this point, they were all used to it.

As they were walking, Isaac continued with his thought. "I am looking forward to training her. She seems to be far more excited about utilizing her powers than some students I have had. You wouldn't believe some of the complaints which I have received from my pupils regarding how boring my lessons can be. At their age, they seem to think that using their powers means destroying whatever they like simply for the thrill of watching it explode."

"Well, I can't promise that Ashley will really like learning meditation and control techniques all that much." said Natalie, with a smile, "Ashley loves to poke around, mostly in places where she isn't allowed. While she's here, you might want to make sure that she doesn't try hacking into Starfleet's main frame."

Isaac stopped and looked at them with a raised eyebrow. "Can she really do that?"

"My advice would be to not ask her and don't give her an opportunity to try it." said Christopher, "Honestly, the girl is better at a computer sometimes than she is at throwing fireballs. It's what she wants to get into when she's old enough to join Starfleet."

Isaac chuckled a little at this, before he sobered and said, in a more serious voice. "There is one thing of importance that I wanted to clear up with you. Ashley is going to be here for the next six months. I don't want to say anything... unwise. Tell me, does she know the truth?"

Christopher and Natalie both looked at each other, before Christopher nodded and said, "Yes, she does. We told her right before we left for Earth. She's going to be essentially living in the center of Deviant and Augment history on earth. There's no way she would have been able to avoid the truth for very long."

"As we said, Ashley knows her way around a computer. She might very well have stumbled upon the information of her ancestry on a lark while raking through the archives that you have here."

"I see." said Isaac, "Being the descendant of such a couple as Khan Noonien Singh and his wife Callista Ahern, it's no wonder that she had inherited such power. Callista was one of the most powerful Deviants ever recorded. Even with the incomplete records we have at our disposal, it's still believed that her telepathy was unrivaled, either by any Deviant in her own time, or those of ours. How did she take the news if I may ask?"

"Honestly, she didn't seem to care all that much. Ashley was never a particular fan of history." said Christopher, "But, I believe that at some point, she will have to come to terms with it. Khan was a great leader, but he had more blood on his hands than any of the other Augment rulers of the time."

Isaac shook his head, his expression thoughtful. "So little is known about that time period of earth's history. So many of the records were lost during the time of the Third World War, I am sometimes astonished that our records are as complete as they are."

"Ashley did at least understand that she had to keep her ancestry a secret." said Christopher, "She could be in potential danger of being victimized if that ever became known."

It was indeed true that the Institute contained a great deal of information on different Augment and Deviant bloodlines, some of them tracing their ancestry back to the very first group of Augments that had been created. These records had been instrumental in learning more of Deviant genetics. The records helped in predicting the strength Deviant abilities, and what the best course of action might be for training those young people who came to the Institute.

However, those records were also a closely guarded secret. Very few outside of the Institute's board of scientists had complete access to those records. In the aftermath of World War Three, Deviants had been blamed for the start of the war, and the near subsequent annihilation of humanity. Human nature being what it was, prejudice, fear and anger had driven regular humans to abuse and confine Deviatnts, often inflicting great harm upon innocent people who were only guilty by descent.

First Contact with the Vulcans had gone a long way to healing this breach between human and Deviant. Now, Deviants were an accepted part of human society. However, some of the festering wounds of the past still lingered. The danger had been, and was still considered great enough that certain Augment bloodlines were still deemed secret.

All three of them were aware of this, and despite themselves, both Natalie and Christopher could not help being worried.

"Ashley's led such a sheltered life aboard the _Baltimore_." said Natalie, "She's never been the victim of prejudice."

"And even in this enlightened age, prejudice is something that is still hard to fully eliminate." Christopher added.

"I'll take care of her. I promise." said Isaac, "Though perhaps our worries might be for nothing. Ashley already has a great deal of self-confidence, rooted in something that goes deeper than her abilities. Perhaps we underestimate how well she will be able to take care of herself."

By this time, they had reached the atrium of the Deviant Institute. It was a beautiful space, circular and airy, with high glass walls on all sides. In sunlight, the sandstone walls themselves seemed to glow with a comforting presence, while the numerous fountains created soothing music. It was a place where the mistakes of the past were remembered, so that they might not be repeated in the future.

Hanging over the the entire atrium was the sculpture which served as the centerpiece not only of the atrium itself, but of the entire purpose of the Institute. The bronze sculpture consisted of two intertwining genome strands, one that of a Deviant and the other of a regular human. The strands wound and looped around each other, so that it was impossible to tell where one started and the other began.

The sculpture had a clear message: for all of their differences, Deviants and humans could still live together in harmony. It was only by accepting and appreciating their differences that true peace and unity could ever be achieved. It was a lesson that the inhabitants of earth had once learned from bitter experience. As he looked on that sculpture now, and thought of all that his daughter was about to face, Christopher Pike found himself hoping that it was a lesson that would never have to be learned again.

Ashley was coming to join them, looking excited and refreshed. Christopher forced down his own doubts and anxieties and pasted a smile on his face. Part of his anxiety not doubt stemmed from the fact that he was leaving behind his little princess for the first time. What father would not want to assume the worst given such a circumstance? He knew that there would be challenges ahead for her, but he also had faith in her ability to overcome them.

Either way, this day marked a turning point in the life of Ashley Pike. Her story was only just beginning.

 **Please leave a review to let me know how you are enjoying this story.**

 **Next chapter: There comes a point in every life when a cross-roads is reached. For the Kirk siblings, that cross-roads is about to be reached when they are given the chance to create a life beyond Iowa, in the stars.**


	5. Cross Roads, Part 1

Cross-Roads, Part 1:

It was, in many ways, a typical day at the college in Storm Lake, Iowa. Students were going hither and yon to get to their classes, some at greater degrees of speed than others depending on how late they found themselves to be. Faculty and various school officials stopped each other to confer on course syllabi and students who were either proving to be a curse or a blessing.

There was one thing amidst all of these activities which was not part of the norm. An information table had been set up inside the student center, from Starfleet. Manning the table were a young woman with dark brown hair and an older man, who were both obviously related, if their similar facial structures and charisma were anything to go by.

Of course, there is only so such enthusiasm that can be found sometimes regarding such information, and today, the various students that they spoke with were not as excited as the two representatives would have liked.

However, there was one person who seemed to be an exception this. She had passed by the table several times over the course of the day. Though she seemed to linger for a little bit longer each time, it seemed as though couldn't work up the courage to go over and actually speak to them. She was in her 20's, with dark blond hair, highlighted with lighter golden streaks. Her eyes were a soft blue color. Danielle Kirk had grown into a young woman of quiet poise and confidence, yet there was a slight restlessness to everything that she did, as though she were not entirely happy with the direction that her life was taking.

Danielle really had had no idea that her presence had been noticed, until the older man at the table came up to her, and began to conversation.

"You seem to be coming over here quite a lot." he said, with a smile and offering his hand. "I thought that I would save you the trouble of actually coming over if you were to shy."

Danielle felt somewhat silly at how obvious she had been to everyone but herself. Nonetheless, she shook his hand. She noticed the insignia on his uniform and said in response, "I wasn't shy, Captain. Just uncertain how to begin the conversation."

When he heard her use of his rank, his smile seemed to grow wider. "I'm Captain Christopher Pike. I'm impressed. You seem to know your way around the ranking system."

Danielle looked down, slightly embarrassed at having given herself away so easily. "I have more than a little history with Starfleet actually. My father was killed in action, aboard the _USS Kelvin_."

Pike's expression grew suddenly serious. "You wouldn't happen to be related to George Kirk at all, would you?"

"Yes, I'm his daughter, Danielle."

"I see." said Pike, and Danielle believed that she could hear more than a little respect begin to come into his tone. "Than it's probably a good thing that I ran into you. I hope that you'll forgive me for knowing a bit more about you before being properly introduced. But your name figured rather prominently in the list of students that the college gave me."

"I don't know if I should be worried about that." said Danielle.

"You really shouldn't. All of your teachers have spoken very highly of you. In fact, they seemed to say that you really were a standout talent in your field."

"Well, I did major in psychology." said Danielle, "I found as I was growing up that I had an affinity for helping people through their problems. Actually, I've had a lot of practice on that. I guess that it just seemed a good fit.

"I like to think that everyone is different. Some people want to talk their problems out, so I listen to them. Others need more of a guiding hand. In that case, I try to ask the right questions and give the best advice that I can. Honestly, it's just common sense."

Pike's smile seemed to grow a little wider. "Modest, too. You'd be surprised how rare that is in your chosen field. I can't begin to tell you how many psychiatrists and councilors I've met in all my years of Starfleet who were to blinded by their own arrogance to do their jobs well."

He looked at her in a penetrating manner, as though he were trying his best to read her. He seemed to like what he saw in her, because his next words caught Danielle off-guard. "You know, you have the potential to go far, Miss Kirk."

"Are you making me an offer, Captain?"

"As a matter of fact, I am."

"I honestly don't know how much good I would be in Starfleet, Captain. I have no scientific experience or aptitude, of any kind."

"You think that the crew of a star-ship is just divided into the scientists and engineers?" said Pike, "A stars-hip needs to be self-sustaining, a community of people that only have each other to rely on. Councilors are an important part of that community. Long months away on missions can really start to wear on peoples' nerves. Traumatic events make it imperative that there is a qualified person on board that people can turn to."

"You bring up a lot of good points." said Danielle, after a moment, "But, we don't get many aliens here in Iowa. I'm afraid that my experience with them is rather limited."

"Experience you can get." said Pike, "But things like compassion and sympathy are much harder to come by, especially when they seem to be innate like yours'."

Danielle sighed and said, "You make a very convincing case, Captain Pike. I have to confess that I've often been very intrigued by Starfleet. Maybe it's because of my father." She didn't really want to mention the other reason that Starfleet seemed like the best chance for her to leave Iowa behind.

It would not have taken a genius to pick up on the fact that Danielle Kirk was not happy in her current life. However, Pike could also sense that something was keeping her from fully pursuing all of her talents and dreams. Even now, he was sure that he saw a spark in her eyes when he described the opportunities that she could find in Starfleet. However, no sooner had that spark come to life, than it died, replaced by that same troubled, restless expression he had first seen on her face.

"So, what's stopping you?"

Pike would not have been able to see the image of Jim's face which flashed across Danielle's mind. Despite everything, she knew that she could not simply abandon him. It would destroy whatever amount of self-control that he had left. "There is... a family issue." said Danielle, after a moment, "It's something that I really can't ignore. I'm sorry."

To her surprise, Pike didn't try to fight her on the issue. He seemed a little disappointed to be sure, but there was also something in his eyes that Danielle had not seen for a long time: understanding. "I should know better than anyone that family always has to come first. However, should things ever change, I would be proud to give you a personal recommendation to Starfleet."

It had been a long time since Danielle had heard anyone give her an encouraging word. Pike's words touched her more deeply than she had been expecting. "Thank you, sir." said Danielle, "I will remember that, I promise you."

"It was lovely to meet you, Miss Kirk." said Pike, as he shook hands with her again. "I hope that this isn't the last time that I see you. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me."

"Thank you, for seeking me out, and please, call me Danielle."

Pike watched Danielle go, a mixture of disappointment and interest playing on his face. He returned to the table, where his daughter had just finished speaking with someone. "Any luck on that one?" he asked.

"No, I'm afraid not. People seem interested in the glamor and excitement of Starfleet, but as soon as they understand there is actually some real work and effort involved in it, they lose all interest. How did it go with that one?" She nodded in Danielle's direction.

"Well, it didn't go quite as I would have liked. But she's someone that I think has a lot of potential, and I don't believe she has been told that enough."

"You think you got through to her?"

Pike smiled at his daughter. "I certainly hope so, Ashley, I certainly hope so."

* * *

Later that evening, when she had been released from recruitment duties, Ashley Pike was more than ready to have a little bit of fun. Storm Lake, Iowa wasn't exactly known for its teaming night-life, but give it enough time, and even the smallest town has a place where there is always some sort of party going on. For Storm Lake, that place just happened to be a local dive known as the Warp Trail Bar. Hardly a creative name, Ashley had to admit. However, the drinks were good and the music was always loud and pulsing. Those were really the only things that an establishment needed to earn her approval.

She had been intending to meet Uhura, a friend from the Academy. Uhura was a Xeno-linguistics major, and even Ashley had to admit that she was great at it. As studious as she was though, Uhura also knew how to let her hair down and have a good time. After a day of talking to total strangers about the opportunities of Starfleet (and being met with varying degrees of excitement), they were both ready to kick back and relax with a person they knew would listen.

As she arrived at the bar a little earlier than their intended meeting time, she decided to get a drink and people watch. Pushing her way through to the bar, she caught the bar-tender's attention. "Hey. Could I have the Slusho mix, please, extra strong?"

No sooner had the bar tender turned to fill her order, than she felt the warm presence of another body sitting beside her. She didn't bother to look around to see who it was, until she heard the voice that belonged to the body, "You're starting off with the strong stuff, tonight? I like a woman who can hold her drinks."

Ashley finally turned her head, and looked into the face of trouble. She guessed his age to be around 22, but he carried himself as having the confidence of someone much older. He was rugged and good-looking, and he was well aware of the fact. He had blond-hair, blue eyes and a smile that had obviously been used on more than a few women in the past.

Ashley instantly saw all of this, and responded with a smile. "If that's the only thing that you look for in a woman, than you must strike out pretty often. Given your height and weight, I imagine that it must be pretty easy to drink you under the table."

The guy didn't seem to be put off by this at all. On the contrary, he smirked, as though he rather liked the sound of her spunk. "You haven't given it a try."

"And before you ask, no, I'm not going to try it. And also, before you try baiting me with the tired, old line of 'are you just too scared to go against me,' I don't need my self-esteem tested by going up against you. Some of us know we're awesome without having to prove it in ridiculous contests."

He actually laughed at this. "I can already tell that you're awesome without having to prove it."

"Well, I also have a bit of a reputation to keep up. It's difficult to be a poster child for Starfleet when you show up to events drunk or with a hangover."

"Oh, so you're going to the Academy. I had a suspicion that you were a Cadet."

Ashley raised an eyebrow and looked down at her outfit. She had decided to change into civilian clothes, as she had honestly had enough of her uniform for that day. That might very well have been what attracted this guy to her in the first place. "I'm glad to see that I give off the Starfleet aura even when I'm not in uniform."

"That's not the only aura that you give off, just so you know." said Jim, with a rakish smile.

Ashley smiled back at him, and replied. "Let me guess: now you're going to ask me what I'm studying at the Academy, and from there, you're going to try and find some sort of common ground, maybe pretend to be interested in what I have to say."

"That was going to be my next question, but I wasn't going to pretend." said Jim, without missing a beat, "You seem to have the ability to read my mind, but I don't know anything about your mind. I don't suppose you would care to enlighten me?"

"First off, I can tell you that telepathy isn't one of my skills. I'm more of a hands-on kind of woman."

His expression seemed to brighten when he heard this. "And just what type of hands-on are you?"

"Mostly the hands on approach which involves programing complex lines of code so that the computers will actually know what they're doing. If you want to know, that's my focus. Go ahead and pretend to be interested right now, I want to see how much of it I can correct you."

"I take it that you just completed your first year, so you must have just passed the rudimentary functions of computer programming: the creating and decoding of various computer streams dealing with multiple different systems, identifying the difference between recursive and modulating algorithms, not to mention having to name and make detailed notes of all the artificial intelligences which drive the star-ships."

Now, it was Ashley's turn to be surprised. She grinned at him, quite genuinely this time. "I have to say, I'm impressed. Just how much do you know about the inner workings of the language of computers?"

"It's a hobby of mine."

"A hobby? I've seen and heard cadets at my level stumbling over themselves as to the right terminology. You've done your homework, for a simple hobby."

"So, are you impressed enough with me to actually know my name?" Ashley gave her head a single nod. "Jim Kirk, and you are?"

"I didn't say that you could know my name. You haven't earned that right yet." She took a sip of drink, and pretended to give a moment's thought. "On the other hand, I don't have anything else to do this evening. My name is Ashley, Ashley Pike."

Jim's smirk seemed to widen and he held out his hand. "Pleasure to meet you, Ashley Pike."

Ashley shook his hand, and said, "Pleasure is all mine, Jim Kirk." Her hold on Jim's hand suddenly tightened and she drew him to her so that she could whisper in his ear. "You know, Jim, I have to admit that there is something about you which could be very tempting, if I were in the mood for inviting trouble. Watch where you put your hands. I happen to have very good combat skills, plus a few other tricks that you probably don't suspect yet."

For a split second, Jim was surprised. But when Ashley pushed him gently away, if anything, his grin had increased. "Oh, I really like that. Just what are these other skills that you have? I'd love to see them."

"Oh, I would love to show them to you, believe me." said Ashley, though she highly doubted that Jim was fully aware of what she meant. "But I've been waiting for the past five minutes for a friend, and she still hasn't shown up. I'm going to go look for her."

"So, you're just going to leave me here all alone?"

As Ashley moved off, she looked back over her shoulder at him, smiling hugely, "Something tells me that being lonely is never a problem with you. Wonderful to meet you, Jim. I really don't know if I should be hoping to meet you again, or just thank my lucky stars that we'll never cross paths again."

She made her way back into the crowd, looking everywhere for the familiar form of Uhura somewhere in the bar, but after searching for a few minutes, she had no luck. It was only in looking back in the direction of the bar that she finally saw Uhura, talking with none other than Jim Kirk. She found herself smirking, and she walked back over to the bar.

Judging from the last few seconds of the conversation that she heard as she came up, it appeared as though Jim was having the same amount of luck with Uhrua as he had had with her. Yet, he continued to be the picture perfect confidence. Without bothering to announce her presence, she stepped up to the bar and said to the bar-tender, "Could I have a refill on this mix, please?"

At the sound of her voice, Jim's head whipped around and he looked at her in surprise. She smiled sweetly at him, "Oh, hi, Jim. It seems that we are destined to meet again. Thanks for finding my friend for me." She looked over at Uhura, "Hey, Uhura. I've been looking for you."

"Sorry, Ashley. I got caught up in a meeting with my adviser, and I couldn't get away." She pointed over at Jim. "I take it that you ran into this guy earlier tonight?"

"Yeah, unfortunately. He recovers very quickly. When I turned him down, he acted like he would have a broken heart for the rest of his life, now here he is trying to get in with you."

"Hey, I am still here, you two." said Jim, "You two are talking over me like I don't exist."

"Not a state that you're all that familiar with, I imagine." said Ashley, as she and Uhura began laughing.

Ashley was enjoying herself immensely. It had been a long time since she had run across a guy who would be able to match with her. Jim Kirk just might be worth her time. But, of course, someone had to come along and ruin it.

A big, rather burly cadet came up to them, shadowed by four other cronies. Whether they thought they saw a prime opportunity to start some trouble, or believed that they were being gallant in helping two ladies in distress from a local hick, Ashley wasn't entirely sure, but they couldn't seem to pick up on the fact that their help was singularly unwelcome.

"This townie isn't bothering you two, am I right?" asked the cadet.

Uhura laughed, as though that in and of itself were a joke. "Oh, beyond belief. But it's nothing we can't handle."

"You could handle me," said Jim, with a smirk, "that's an invitation."

"The question to ask yourself, though, is could you handle either of us?" Ashley asked.

"I don't know, I'd be willing to try it if you are."

"Hey." said the Cadet, "You better mind your manners."

"Oh, relax, Cupcake, it was a joke." said Jim, as he swatted the cadet on the arm.

Ashley had been enjoying herself up until this moment. But as it became apparent that Jim wasn't hesitating about talking himself into a fight, her congenial mood now began to slightly lessen. She really couldn't believe that he seemed to be enjoying baiting the cadet, who was fast losing patience.

"Hey, you know how to count, farm boy?" the Cadet demanded, "There's four of us and one of you."

Jim appeared to be completely untroubled by this statement. "Then go and get four or five more and we'll call it a fair fight."

That did it. Cupcake (as Jim had so charmingly christened him) let loose, delivering a devastating right hook across Jim's face. Jim stumbled back and Ashley could see that his nose was bleeding. However, whereas most sane people might have simply given up at this point, Jim's confidence seemed to skyrocket. He whirled back around to Cupcake and his cronies, and began to deliver a few punches of his own.

The harsh sound of punches, kicks and groans were enough to catch the attention of everyone in the bar. In a moment, a crowd had gathered around the combatants, many of them cheering and placing hasty bets as to who would be the winner. The only ones who actually seemed halfway concerned about the actual people involved were Uhura and Ashley.

They were the lone voices in trying to get the testosterone fueled fighters to stop, but they were to easily lost in the crowd. However, that all changed for Ashley when Cupcake and his followers threw a half-drunken Jim over a table. He landed hard on the ground, dazed and obviously no longer a threat. This wasn't enough for Cupcake though, who seemed determined to beat Jim to a pulp simply for the crime of being alive. He hauled Jim roughly to his feet, and pinned him to a nearby table. He let loose on Jim, punching him in the face, again and again.

Ashley had had enough at this point. Yes, perhaps this Jim Kirk was partly responsible for getting himself into this mess, but Cupcake and his goons were acting more like vigilantes than Starfleet cadets. They were the ones who were taking advantage of unfair circumstances. That was something which she had never liked, and she wasn't going to start tolerating it now, however much Jim might have asked for it.

"Excuse me, Uhura." she said, as she stepped in front of her friend, "I would hate to see you in the line of fire, or water, as the case might be."

A second later, Cupcake and his friends found themselves the unfortunate target of a fire hose that seemed to erupt from nowhere, blasting them all icy cold water. The intensity of the water was so strong that it forced them back several feet. Ashley took advantage of their momentary lapse to quickly get between them and the now prostrate Jim. "You boys appear to have gotten your point across. Why don't you just run along now, and no one else needs to get hurt?"

Cupcake was now soaking wet, which was not doing anything to help his temper. He spat out some of the water, and glared at her. "You sticking your neck out for him, Cadet? What for? Why the hell are you putting yourself on the line for a bastard like him?" He gestured over to Jim, "He's just a drunken idiot."

"Yes, he's only a drunk idiot." Ashley shot back, "Which means that you shouldn't be wasting your energy on him. If this is what Starfleet's finest has to offer, than we'll all be in trouble when the Klingons attack."

Cupcake bristled at the obvious insult, and took a step forward, but Ashley was already waiting for him. "You really want to mess with me, Cupcake?" she asked, as she heated the molecules in front of her, creating a ball of fire that hovered mid-air inbetween herself and the group of Starfleet cadets. "You've already seen what I can do with cold water. I'd love to see what the lot of you would do if things really got heated."

A tense stand-off had been created between the two groups. Cupcake and his cohorts would have liked to rush in and finish the job which they had started, but none of them really wanted to end up in Ashley's literal line of fire. However, any chance of a second round was called off when a loud, shrill whistle pierced the air. It put an abrupt stop to everything that was going on in the bar.

All eyes turned to the door, where stood the tall, rugged outline of Captain Christopher Pike, who didn't look exactly pleased at walking in on the tail-end of the brawl. Cupcake and the rest seemed to realize that they could potentially be in a lot of trouble, even if they had no idea as to the connection between Ashley and the Captain.

Pike swept the entire scene with a cold gaze, before he ordered abruptly, "Outside, all of you!"

No one dared to disobey the order of the Captain, though there were some discontented grumbles, as some of the bar's patrons had just ordered their first drinks of the night. Cupcake and his friends, however, could not get out of there fast enough. As the rest of the people shuffled out in various stages of inebriation, Pike turned his attention to Ashley.

"Cadet, I assume that you had a good reason for using your powers in a situation like this?"

Ashley shrugged. "I don't know, sir. That really depends on what you mean by a god reason. If you were going to ask me if I thought this person was actually worth defending, I'm still making my mind up about that. But, I can't say that I really liked the attitude of those security officers. Bullies have never sat very well with me."

Pike was trying really hard not to smile affectionately at Ashley. "As you were, Cadet."

"Thank you, sir." said Ashley, as she moved past him. "Good luck with this guy, dad." She whispered to him. "I've got a feeling he's not going to be easy."

Pike watched Ashley go, before turning back to the prone body of the young man who was still lying on the table, half dazed. Pike had a strange feeling that the face, bloody and bruised as it was, looked oddly familiar. "You okay, son?"

Jim smiled drunkenly at the upside down man who had saved his skin. He still wasn't completely sure what was going on. "You can whistle really loud, you know that?" That was the last thing he remembered, before he blacked out and slid off the table.


	6. Cross Roads, Part 2

Cross-Roads, Part 2:

Danielle was not necessarily surprised to hear from the owner of the Warp Trail Bar that evening. Her brother had caused a drunken brawl in his establishment, again. This time, it had been so serious that a Starfleet Captain had needed to step in and stop it. Now, she needed to come and escort him out of the bar before he called the police to come and lock Jim up, again.

She was not surprised. This situation had happened more times than she cared to count. However, she was always disappointed. It was just another example of both their lives were becoming stagnated and meaningless.

It didn't take her long to get to the Warp Trail Bar on her hover-bike. As she walked into the bar, she saw the owner and some of the bar-tenders cleaning up the place. This time, it seemed as though Jim's exploits had left behind a fairly substantial mess. The owner didn't even bother to greet her, he just jerked his head over to where Jim was sitting.

Jim's face was bruised and bleeding. Obviously, he had come out on he losing side of the fight. However, what made this particular scene different from so many others was that there was actually someone talking to Jim, someone who was not local law enforcement. He was seated with his back to her, so she couldn't see his face, but there was something about the way he held himself that seemed vaguely familiar.

Jim was the first one to see her come in. He immediately tried to get to his feet, saying, "Look, Danni, I can explain..." However, he wasn't able to make it to his feet without wincing visibly and abruptly sitting heavily back down.

"Jim, don't try and explain it. I think that we've both heard it before, and we both know that it isn't working."

Jim looked down at the table, unable to meet the stern, disappointed gaze of his sister. However, the sound of her voice had caused the other man to turn and look at her curiously. No sooner did she see his face, then she immediately recognized him. "Captain Pike."

"Miss Kirk, good to see you again. I was hoping that I would get a chance to speak with you soon."

Jim's face came up, and he looked at the two of them in confusion. "Wait a second, you two know each other?"

"We met earlier this afternoon." said Pike, "Your sister seemed very interested in Starfleet, but said that she had a family obligation." He gazed pointedly at Jim. "I take it your the obligation she was talking about."

"You make me sound like I'm keeping her by force, or something." muttered Jim. "Have to admit, I don't know why you're still here. You don't have some pressing business to attend to?"

"Jim." said Danielle, sharply, "Captain Pike stepped in too help where probably no other person would have. The very least you could do is try to be respectful."

Pike found himself smiling at Danielle. "I can see that you weren't kidding about an obligation, Miss Kirk. Keeping this brother of yours' on the straight and narrow must be a challenge."

"Oh, you have no idea."

"Hey, I'm still here you know." said Jim.

"Yes, you are still here, which brings me back to my original point. You want to know why I'm talking to you right now, of all people? It's because I looked up your file when you were drooling on the floor. Your aptitude tests are off the charts. You like being the only genius level repeat offender in the mid-west?"

"Maybe I love it." Jim said, defensively.

"And what about your sister?" Pike looked over at Danielle, " You think she loves it? She's as smart as you are, probably more so since she's actually trying to do something with her talent. You think that she loves watching you like this?"

"Hey, leave Danielle out of this." Jim spat, as always defensive of Danielle. "I know what your trying to pull. It's a guilt trip."

"It's not guilt." said Pike, "You know that it's true."

Jim looked over at Danielle, almost expecting her to stand up in his defense. He really should have known better; Danielle had practically raised Jim, but she had never held his hand. This time, she wasn't going to deny what Pike had so eloquently said. "Don't look at me, Jim. Maybe if you hear it from someone else, you'll actually listen."

As Jim tried to get over his shock, Pike continued. "So, your dad dies, and I can see that the two of you are still trying to understand where that leaves you. I saw it in your eyes today, Danielle, and however much you want to deny it, Jim, I think it's inside you, too. I get the feeling that the two of you will never settle for a less than ordinary life."

Jim and Danielle looked at each other, all to aware that Pike was more correct than he could have guessed. That night, all those years ago when the two of them had snuck out of their rooms to look up at the stars, had hardly been the first time. Sometimes, it had seemed like the only thing getting them through their all but nonexistent life was the promise of what lay beyond those stars.

"Or do you both feel like you're meant for something different? Something better?"

There was a beat, as Pike watched Jim's face closely, seeing the momentary flash of intense longing that flashed in Jim's blue eyes. It was the same look he had seen in Danielle's eyes earlier that day. A hunger for adventure, something beyond the ordinary. He allowed that to be felt by Jim, before he delivered his final ultimatum. "Enlist in Starfleet."

Jim began laughing in disbelief. Danielle he could perfectly understand Pike wanting. She was the responsible one, she had promise, talent. What exactly could Pike see in him that made him think he had anything even remotely useful to give? "Enlist? You must be way down on your recruiting quota for the month..."

"Jim, actually take a moment to listen to Captain Pike. He might actually say something that makes sense."

Jim looked over at Danielle, with a slight frown. "Danielle, I thought that you were supposed to be my supportive, older sister."

"Jim, being an older sister means that I support you, but I also retain the right to hit you on the head in order to make you see what's best for you."

"She may be right, Jim. If you're half the man your father was, Starfleet could use you. You could be an officer in four years, have your own ship in eight. You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's important. It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada..."

Jim was trying to be completely indifferent to what Pike was saying. However, the more that he listened to the Starfleet Captain, the more he felt Pike slowly starting to get under his skin. Pike was putting into words exactly what he was hungering for, but which he kept trying to push to the back of his mind.

"We done?" he demanded.

"I'm done." said Pike, after a moment, "I doubt that Danielle will be done, though."

He got up and looked down at the two of them. "Riverside Ship Yard. Shuttle for new recruits leaves tomorrow, 8:00."

Captain Pike turned and walked a few steps. However, before he exited the bar, he turned and looked back at Jim one last time. "You father was captain of a star-ship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, your sister's, and yours." He paused, allowing that fact to sink into both of their minds. "I dare you to do better, and if doing it for yourself isn't enough motivation, try doing it for your sister. She deserve better."

He gazed at Jim for a few more seconds, before he turned around and left.

"Come on, Jim." said Danielle, after a moment, "Let's go."

For a few hours, the two of them simply rode through the back-roads of Iowa, roads which they had traversed far to many times before as they tried to find something new to challenge them in the place where they had grown up. Truthfully, they had both given up on the search a long time ago. They both knew that there nothing for them here.

They didn't really know how they happened to end up at the Riverside Ship Yard, but as dawn began to streak the eastern sky, they idled their bikes to a stop a little ways beyond the high fence which surrounded the site. They had long been used to growing up in the towering shade of star-ships under construction. However, Danielle had read that this new structure which they were building was going to be the greatest ship in the fleet once it was completed.

Jim also found himself looking up at the skeletal structure of the star-ship. He could not deny the call that the ship had over him, all the promises that it whispered to him in the pre-dawn light. In a rare moment of raw self-critique, he couldn't deny that he _knew_ both Pike and Danielle were right. He was wasting his life, and he was holding his sister back. She was one of the few people that he trusted with everything, he knew that the only thing keeping her in Iowa was him, and his own stupid behavior. She really did deserve better.

"You told me once that Iowa was to small for people like us." said Jim, after a reflective moment, "That we would find a way to get out of here."

"I still think that." said Danielle, "You're at a cross-roads, Jim. We both are. Whatever we do tonight, whether it's the safe and familiar thing, or a path that we can't see the end of, we won't be able to go back."

"I never did like those kinds of choices." muttered Jim, though he realized all to well the truth of what his sister was saying.

"Well, the choice is yours, Jim. And you should know that I'll still be here for you. I don't know if I can promise that I'll fully support what you chose, but I will be here."

"You're playing as dirty as Pike, now. You're playing the guilty card."

"Jim, I know you so well, I could probably employ a great deal of psychiatric persuasion techniques to get you to see things my way. But if guilt doesn't work, I would remind you that Captain Pike just dared you, and you've never been one to skip out on a dare." She gestured up to the skeletal ship being constructed above them. "What do you think? Is that a big enough dare for you to take up?"

Jim took another long look up at that ship, in so many ways, a reflection of where he felt he was at that moment. That ship didn't look like much, and yet, there was still so much promise in those exposed steel beams and engine parts. It was a far greater promise than he knew he would ever get in Iowa.

He looked over at Danielle, and a grin appeared on his face. "You know, maybe it is big enough for me. What about you?"

Danielle returned the smile and shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, I've got nothing to do for the next few years, and someone will have to keep an eye on you in San Francisco."

That seemed to settle the issue for both of them. Their choice made, they steered their bikes towards the shipyard and the cross-roads that awaited them.

* * *

In the interior of the River City Shipyard, the large shuttle which would carry the Academy students back to San Francisco was being strangely delayed. Granted, only by a few minutes, but considering how much of stickler Captain Pike was about being punctual, this was slightly out of character for him.

Ashley herself knew this better than anyone, which was why she was hovering curiously a few feet away from the entrance of the shuttle, trying to figure out what was going on with her dad. He kept glancing over at the main gate of the Shipyard, almost as if he were hoping for someone to magically appear and he was continuously being disappointed.

The shuttle pilot had run all of his diagnostics for take off, and he came up to Pike. "We waiting for something, Captain?" he asked, puzzled as to why the order hadn't been given for take-off yet.

Casting one last glance over at the main gate, Pike seemed to conclude that it was a useless errand. "No, I guess not." he said, and Ashley wouldn't have been able to miss the disappointment all to evident in his tone.

The pilot nodded, and headed off to the cockpit of the shuttle to begin his final preparations. Ashley came over to him, and said, "Dad, who exactly were we waiting for? You've been looking out there for at least fifteen minutes."

Pike turned to her and smiled, trying to hide his disappointment from his daughter. "It's nothing, Princess. I just thought that I could convince someone to do something useful with themselves, and they just weren't willing to listen."

"Well, then it's their own fault that they didn't listen to you." said Ashley.

Whatever Pike might have said in response to this, Ashley was never able to find out. At that very moment, the everyday noise of the Shipyard and the construction which was going on inside it's perimeter was broken by the sound of two hover-bikes approaching the shuttle. Pike allowed himself a small smile when he saw who was riding them. "On the other hand, maybe they did listen."

Ashley looked in the direction of the bikes, and immediately recognized the riders. The woman was the same one who had spoken to her father yesterday. And then there was Jim Kirk. Oh, she would not have been able to forget him so easily. He appeared to be as confidant and cocky as he had the night before, though the last time she had seen him, he had been laid out on a table with half the life knocked from him.

"You're kidding?" said Ashley, skeptically, "Those are the people that we're waiting for."

"I thought that you said they had potential."

"I said that about, what was her name, Danielle. I have a harder time thinking that about Jim Kirk. Are you trying to tell me that they're related?"

"Brother and sister." said Pike, "And I think that you need to look past first impressions, Cadet. You might be surprised what you find."

As Danielle and Jim rode up to the shuttle, and brought their bikes to a stop, a worker in the shipyard couldn't help but admire the make and model of the bikes. "Nice ride, man."

The two Kirks looked at each other, and traded nearly identical smirks. Jim tossed the worker the key-card to the bike, and said, without preamble, "It's all yours'."

"And here," said Danielle, dong the same thing, "One for your girlfriend, too."

They came striding over to where Pike and Ashley, who were standing in the entrance to the shuttle. Pike didn't say anything to them, merely grinned in satisfaction. However, Jim wouldn't give him the complete satisfaction of saying that he was right. "Four years? I'm gonna do it in three."

Ashley raised her eyebrows, not knowing whether to admire this show of bravado or not. Jim noticed her standing there, and turned his charming smile on Ashley, "Oh, hi there. I wasn't expecting to see you here. You going to be flying with us?"

Pike might have been glad that he had gotten Jim and Danielle both to see sense, but he drew the line at someone like Jim flirting with his little girl. "Ashley," he said, rather abruptly, and breaking the normal decorum of addressing his daughter by her first name when he was on duty, "Would you care to show Danielle and Jim Kirk to their seats? We're about to take off."

"Sure, dad." said Ashley, sarcastically, knowing that her father was trying to protect her, and feeling more than a little annoyed at the fact. She was a grown woman, and she did know how to take care of herself. "I had nothing else better to do than play babysitter for this trip."

Still, she had to admit that it was hilarious seeing Jim's face completely transform from cocky flirtation to open-mouth astonishment and horror. Danielle, obviously wishing to avoid any awkward scenes before Jim even started hi sfirst day, ushered him past Pike and into the interior of the shuttle. "You're Captain Pike's daughter?" whispered Jim, in astonishment.

"Oh, gee, I must have forgotten to mention that when we met last night." said Ashley, "I'm surprised you can't see the family resemblance."

"Jim, what did you do?" asked Danielle, firmly.

"Nothing, nothing. I didn't do anything." Jim said.

"Hey, calm down, Jim. Tell you what, I won't tell my dad that you flirted with me if you won't tell him that I flirted with you, deal?"

"Deal, yeah, sure." said Jim, looking kind of relieved that he had dodged a bullet. However, any attempt he might have made to get over the awkwardness was abruptly shattered the next moment when he turned to go into the main area of the shuttle and slammed his head against a low-lying beam.

"Watch your head." said Ashley, with a smirk.

Jim shot her a glare, before he docked underneath the beam and moved down the rows of cadets, who were all in uniform, and looking with curiosity at the conspicuous newcomers. Well, most of them did, save for the cadets who Jim had fought the night before. They all looked up at him with expressions that were less than friendly. Danielle was almost afraid that Jim would be provoked into doing something stupid, but luckily, he just walked past them, with an easy, "At ease gentlemen."

Danielle couldn't help but notice that they seemed to be more wary of Ashley herself. Ashley smiled at them, and said, "Morning, boys. You certainly do dry off nice."

"What did that mean?" Danielle asked, in puzzlement.

"Oh, I might have given them a taste of their own medicine last night; doused them with some cold water out of thin air. That shut them up."

"So, I didn't just hallucinate that last night?" said Jim, as he sat down in one of the few empty seats and sitting down.

"Yeah, being a Deviant does have a few advantages." Ashley replied as she sat down opposite Jim, along with Danielle, and started strapping herself in for the upcoming flight.

Seeing Ashley do this, Jim looked at the restraints, and tried struggling with them for a moment, without any real success."The straps go through your arms." said Ashley, watching him, ad making no effort to hide her amusement. .

For the second time in five minutes, Jim glared at her. "Thank you. You're being so helpful."

"That's why I'm here." said Ashley, "Though I do hope that if you're planning to get into Starfleet you'll be able to see where your going and know how to strap into a shuttle seat."

Jim was about to respond with a scathing put-down, when he spotted another familiar face a bit further down the row. It was Uhura. He immediately stopped trying to figure out Ashley Pike and her annoying habit of bantering with him, and beamed that same charming smile at Uhura. "Never did catch that first name."

"And you never will." said Uhura, with a smile.

"Jim, can't you behave for anymore than five minutes?" Danielle asked in exasperation.

"Oh, come on, Danni, where's the fun in that?"

"Well, we've been on this shuttle less than five minutes. I'm just saying that I would like to get to San Francisco without seeing you get thrown out of the shuttle mid-flight."

"Speaking of which, we were waiting for you two to show up, I wonder why we're not taking off."

No sooner had Ashley asked the question than they all three heard the sound of a scuffle coming from the back of the shuttle and quickly approaching them. The next moment, two figures appeared, one a stern, uniformed flight officer, who was ushering (or pushing, depending on your point of view), a highly reluctant and vocal man in front of her. The man, who was dressed in clothes that had seen better days and had about two days worth of stubble growing on his cheeks, was tall with dark hair and blue eyes. Unfortunately, his size did not seem to at all aid him in looking as though he were being ushered to an execution rather than an actual seat.

The two of them were arguing at pretty much the same time, and it was difficult to really hear clearly what they were saying. "You need a doctor." The flight officer said.

"I told you people, I don't need a doctor. I am a doctor, damn it!" said the man, who had a slight southern lilt to his voice.

"You need to get back to your seat."

"I had one, in the bathroom, with no windows."

"You need to get back to your seat, now!"

"I suffer from aviophobia, that means fear of dying inside something that flies."

"Sir, for your own safety, sit down, or I'll make you sit down."

Danielle hardly knew why she did it, but she saw that the argument had a potential to just keep on going, suddenly got to her feet and said, "Excuse me, I couldn't help but overhearing. Officer, this man is clearly suffering from some sort of panic attack. I'm a psychiatrist, leave him with me. He won't be any trouble."

The man looked at this stranger in apparent shock, while the officer looked somewhat skeptical. However, she had had enough with this troublemaker, and wanted nothing more than to get a flight underway that was already late. "Very well, Cadet. He's all yours'. Make sure he behaves."

The officer walked away, and Danielle grabbed the man by the shoulder before he could bolt for the bathroom again. "Look, I don't know who you are, missy, but you're really gonna get into trouble if you go around spreadin' rumors like that." he said, as she pushed him into the seat beside Jim.

"Don't give me that crap, sir." said Danielle, sounding like she always did whenever she was scolding Jim after he had done something particularly stupid. "Your current fear of aviophobia is being exacerbated by having consumed alcohol at some point within the last twenty-four hours. You really have no one to blame but yourself for this, and I just made sure that you didn't get thrown off of this shuttle before it even took off. And before you think about insulting my skills again, I should tell you that I'm a registered psychiatrist, and I know what I'm talking about."

The man stared at her in speechless shock for a few moments, which gave Danielle just enough time to get properly strapped in and rejoin Ashley right in front of them. "There, now sit quietly and calmly, taking deep breaths and this whole thing will be over before you know it."

They heard Pike's voice over the intercom announcing that they had been declared clear for take-off. As the engines of the small shuttle began rumbling to life, the man seemed to turn even paler and he balled his hands into fists. "I may throw up on you." He growled in a surly manner to Jim.

"I think these things are pretty safe." said Jim, trying to get a grip on this weird introduction.

"Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull, and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. A solar flare might pop up and cook us in our seats. And wait 'til your sitting pretty with a care of Andorian shingles. See if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding."

"Well, aren't you just a little ray of sunshine?" said Ashley.

"Just statin' the truth, little lady, a truth backed up by cold hard facts." said the man, "Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence."

"Well, I hate to beak it to you, but Starfleet operates in space." said Jim.

"It is rather implied in the name." said Ashley, "Got to admire a man who meets his fears head on."

"Not unless you've got nothing else." said Danielle, who had been looking closely at the man. "Am I right?"

The man turned his intense, blue-eyed stare back at her. He seemed surprised, and perhaps grudgingly respectful of her talents. "You do got an eye for personalities, don't you? It's true, I've got nowhere else to go. The ex-wife took the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I've got left is my bones."

He took a flask of whiskey from his coat pocket and took a deep drink. Jim stared at him for a few moments, honestly finding himself intrigued. Just like him, this man was going into this thing completely blind as to how it would all turn out. He had nothing but the clothes on his back, and a hope for a better life. Theirs' was certainly not the most hopeful of situations, and yet, it just might be enough to begin a friendship. "Jim Kirk." he said, as he took the offered flask from the man.

"McCoy, Leonard McCoy." He looked over at Danielle, "I get the feeling that you two are related. Same facial structure around the upper cheek bones, not to mention those eyes are to similar."

"Danielle Kirk." said Danielle, as she reached over and took the flask from Jim and took a drink of her own.

Leonard stared at her, and said, "You helpin' yourself after that lecture you gave me about drinking?"

"I think I need it if I'm going to be looking after you two." She handed the flask back to him with a sweet smile. "Besides, that's the last of it. Now, you can't use it to make your condition worse. We wouldn't want that, would we?"

For a moment, she wasn't sure if Leonard McCoy would lapse into sullen silence or just begin arguing with her like petulant child. Instead, one side of his mouth quirked up into a grudging smile. "You just might know what you're talking about, darlin'."

"I do try." said Danielle.

The shuttle fired it's engines and took off, Danielle and Jim Kirk leaving behind their former life, ready to begin a new one.

* * *

 **Please read and review.**


	7. Three Years Later

**As you might have noticed from this chapter title, I have made the choice to take the path of the movie and jump ahead three years to where the main action starts to pick up. I have done this mainly because I have a lot of material which I would like to cover in those three years, but I am afraid that the story will start to drag if I do that liberally.**

 **In order to make sure that the story keeps moving forward, I am going to try a format that will hopefully fill in what happened during those three years at the Academy, by incorporating flashbacks into the narrative of the actual movie. Because of this, there might be some events mentioned in some chapters which seem to have very little context, but I will explain them in flashbacks.**

 **For right now, let's go three years into the future, to the day before _Kobayashi Maru_ test, and see just how some of the characters have changed during that time. **

Three Years Later:

It was a bight, sunny day on the grounds of Starfleet Academy. Dozens of cadets in their signature red uniforms were making their way to and from their various classes, or relaxing on any of the numerous benches and green lawns in order to study or talk about how hard one of their previous tests had been.

In many ways, the two men and one woman who were among that number hardly seemed to stand out, except that one of the men seemed to be in an insanely good mood, while the other man was scowling, while the woman herself mainly seemed to be amused at the attitude of them both. Again, this sort of situation really wasn't out of the ordinary. Jim Kirk's optimism hadn't dampened in the course of three years at the Academy, while Leonard McCoy's continued in a state of perpetual annoyance, said reaction most often being aroused because of Jim's antics.

The only real difference between this day and the day of their first meeting was Danielle's position in relation to the three, which had changed drastically. She still took an active interest in Jim's well fare, even if he didn't need it so much as he did then. The Academy had been good for Jim, and he had really bloomed in more ways than she could have hoped for. However, there are only so many ways that a big sister is able to let go easily. And she was still the one who played referee between Jim and Leonard.

However, it wasn't always easy to be impartial. Danielle now often found herself taking Leonard's side of the issue, which was only natural since the two of them had started a serious relationship.

Of any two people, Leonard and Danielle seemed to be the most unsuited pair that could be imagined. Leonard was blunt and gruff, sometimes to the point of rudeness. Danielle was understanding and patient. On the other hand, it might be for the reason that they were so different that they worked so well at balancing each other. Plus, as Danielle herself had often said, Leonard was handsome and he had an accent. For those two qualities alone, it had been worth giving a try.

Jim was remarkably at ease with this whole situation. For the longest time, he had privately believed that Danielle deserved to have someone who looked for her as much as she looked after him. Though he did make a point of occasionally reminding Bones that if he ever did anything to hurt his sister, he would give his nickname a new meaning, and he would never recover from it. (Leonard had grudgingly accepted the nickname which Jim had thrust upon him. Danielle actually thought that he had come to like it, though he would probably never admit it).

At the moment, the love life of his sister and best friend was probably the last thing on Jim's mind. He was way to happy for that, and that made Leonard nervous. "Why are you so happy?" He asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

"I do not know what you're talking about." said Jim, with a smirk.

"No, I don't suppose you do." said Leonard, as he rolled his eyes, and looked hopelessly at Danielle.

"I think we both know what this is about, Leonard." said Danielle, "It's been the thing which Jim has been obsessing over for the last three months."

Jim had taken a moment to follow the trail of two rather attractive cadet ladies, before he went back to the conversation. "I'm taking the test again."

Leonard gaped at Jim in disbelief. He didn't need to be told what the "test" was. There was only one test at the Academy which was referred to in that manner; it was simply that infamous. "You've got to be kidding?"

"Leonard, this is Jim which we're talking about." said Danielle, "You should know by now that whenever he should be kidding, he's completely serious."

"And I am completely serious this time, Bones. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, and I want you to be there."

"Don't you want me to be there, to offer emotional support?" said Danielle.

"I love how enthusiastic you were about that offer, Danni. It really makes me feel loved. But I know you've got a class that time. Please don't distract yourself by worrying about me."

"Why on earth would I worry about you?" said Danielle.

"If you don't need Danielle to be there, why on earth do you need me?" asked Leonard, almost angrily, "You know I've got better things to do than watch you embarrass yourself for the third time. I am a doctor, Jim I'm busy."

Jim stopped, and faced both of them. His face was set with wild determination, the enthusiasm of which was almost exhausting to see. "Bones, it doesn't bother you that no one's ever passed the test?"

"Ah, so now we come down to the real problem." said Danielle, deliberately putting on her tone of clinical fascination, "You seem to be suffering from a case of over competitiveness, Jim. You need to overcome every single challenge that comes your way, regardless of the risk or the odds stacked against you. You might want to try taking a step back and analyze these situations every so often, Jim. Otherwise, you might find yourself in a place where you can't get out of."

"Danni, stop trying to put everything I do in my life into the context of a psychological problem. You know I hate that."

"It's your fault, Jim. You ave so many problems as to be a live case study for me to make observation. Honestly, I owe thanks because you give me so many opportunities."

"Will you two stop your bickering for half a second? Jim, it's the _Kobayashi Maru_. No one passes the test. And no one goes back for seconds, let alone thirds."

"Jim has always been a glutton for punishment." muttered Danielle, "I really ought to start writing a series of lectures on all the possible necrosis which I could find in him."

"Yeah, you do that, Danielle." said Jim, who didn't seem to be at all troubled by this ribbing, "Just make sure that you give me the credit for your inspiration. Bye, you two. I've gotta study."

With that Jim strode off, as Leonard and Danielle watched him. "Study, my ass." muttered Leonard, as he rolled his eyes. "Bet you 10 to 1, he's going to spend the night with some exotic girl he picked up in-between classes."

"You honestly can't expect anything else from Jim, would you?" said Danielle.

Leonard shook his head. "I've known that kid for three years, and I still can't understand half the things which he gets up."

"Don't feel to bad. I've known him my entire life and he's still a mystery to me." said Danielle, as the two of them turned and began walking in the opposite direction to the one which Jim had taken. Now that they were alone, Leonard's arm wrapped around her waist, and pulled her close.

"Still, you gotta know why he keeps comin' back to that test. It makes no sense. He doesn't even to pass it in order to graduate. Most people on the command course like he is just take it and get it over with."

"I wish that I could say." said Danielle, "Jim has never liked losing. As a matter of fact, the more someone tells him something is impossible, the more determined he becomes to prove them wrong." She looked over at him, arching one of her eyebrows inquiringly. "Are you going to be there tomorrow?"

Leonard rolled his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. "Of course I'm goin' to be there. It won't make a bit of difference, but Jim might as well have someone there he can count on."

"You're a good friend, Leonard. I'm sure it has nothing to do with he fact that you want to keep on Jim's good side because you happen to be dating someone who is very close to him."

"Right, it has nothin' to do with that." He stopped, and turned to face her. "For right now, though, talking about Jim is starting to give me a headache. I've got a better idea of how we could spend our time.

Ashley smiled and put her arms around Leonard's neck. "Oh, did you have something in mind?"

Leonard put his arms around her waist, and pulled her close. "Well, something tells me that we're goin' to have a little bit of time to ourselves tonight. We should take advantage of it. Are you free for dinner tonight?"

Danielle cocked her head, pretending to give the matter very serious thought, before she shrugged nonchalantly. "I think that I can free up my schedule for that."

"Good, I would hate to have to come up with a medical excuse for you."

* * *

Ashley had honestly had many wonderful experiences in her last three years at the Academy. However, she could not say that this evening was one of them. She was very annoyed at a good many things right now, and one person in particular who had just earned her ire.

As she left the simulation room, where she had been working for the past two hours, she was still fuming as she thought of that damn Vulcan's superior attitude. She had never been entirely fond of Vulcans, but she was now convinced that she would never have a good opinion of that species, all thanks to this one individual.

She was so lost in her angry musings, that she nearly ran into Uhura on the way out of the building. "Oh, sorry, Uhura." said Ashley, as she managed to pull herself up just in time before colliding with her. "I'm not really paying attention to things."

"Yeah, so I can see." said Uhura, observing Ashley's stormy expression. "What's got into you?"

Ashley huffed and shook her head. "I really don't want to talk about it."

"Oh, all right, sorry I asked." said Uhura.

Realizing that she probably sounded rather petulant for no reason, Ashley took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. "Look, I'm sorry. I've had a really bad evening. But, I shouldn't take it out on you. I had to stay late in the _Kobayashi Maru_ simulation room to take care of some things in anticipation of tomorrow."

"Right, I forgot about that." said Uhura, who didn't sound anymore thrilled then Ashley, though perhaps for different reasons. "That friend of yours', Kirk, he's taking the test again, for no reason other than to be a show off. I'm supposed to the communications officer in that simulation. Apparently, he asked for me to be there personally."

"Hey, you're the best there is, Uhura. Jim knows that. You should take it as a compliment."

"On the list of compliments I was ever hoping to receive, that is the pretty near the bottom." said Uhura.

The two of them had been walking towards the dorm buildings while they had been talking. As they entered and arrived at Uhura's room, Ashley asked, "I don't suppose you'd care to join me for a night on the town? After the evening I've had, it's something I could use."

"No, sorry. I've got a date that I need to get ready for." said Uhura.

Ashley sighed in mock exasperation and shook her head. "You know, ever since you got that mystery boyfriend of yours', you've certainly become a lot less fun. You won't even tell me what his name is."

Uhura rolled her eyes in response. "If you keep making snide comments like that, it will be a long time before I let you in on who he is."

"Not that I've been up at night thinking about it." said Ashley, as Uhura opened the door to the dorm room, and the two of them stepped inside.

Coming into the room, Ashley saw the green-skinned Orion who Uhura shared her dorm with, stretched out on her bed, wearing nothing but her bra and panties. Ashley might have raised an eyebrow, but knowing Gailia, this was actually a very common occurrence. "Hey." said Uhura, as she came into the room, and dropped her bag on the floor.

"Hey, Uhura." Gailia probably had not been expecting to see Ashley, and when she did, her eyes grew slightly wider, and her voice became a squeak. "Oh, hi, Ashley. How are you two?"

"Hi, Gailia." said Ashley, "Don't mind me, I'll be going in a moment. I'm just trying to get personal information from Uhura. It's incredibly entertaining."

"I'm good." said Uhura, ignoring Ashley's jibe as she began undressing herself as well. It was evident that she was probably getting ready for that mystery date of her's. "Strangest thing. I was in the long range sensor lab."

"Yeah, I... I thought all night..." said Gailia, who seemed to be almost nervous.

"I was tracking solar systems and I picked up an emergency transmission."

"Really?" said Gailia. Ashley thought that she was trying to sound immensely interested in what Uhura was describing so that her roommate wouldn't think to look around the room.

"Yeah." said Uhura, "From a Klingon prison planet."

"No." Gailia was doing her very best to sound engrossed in the story.

"Yeah. A Klingon armada was destroyed, 47 ships."

"Damn," said Ashley, who impressed despite herself. "I don't know how I feel about something that could destroy 47 Klingon ships. Hopefully, I'll never have to find out."

"So, you're not going back to the lab tonight?" Gailia inquired, sounding more than a little hopeful.

At this point, Uhura (who was now in the same state of undress as Gailia) finally seemed to catch onto the fact that Gailia was acting strangely, even for the Orion. She turned around to face Gailia, a look of extreme annoyance on her face. "Gailia, who is he?"

"Who's who?" said Gailia, trying to look and sound innocent, but failing rather miserably.

"The mouth breather under your bed?" Uhura demanded, who was starting to get angry by this point.

Before Gailia could respond, Ashley was hardly surprised when Jim himself popped up from behind the bed, wearing nothing but his underwear. He hardly seemed annoyed at having been discovered. He actually seemed incredibly impressed. "You could hear me breathing?"

"You." said Uhura, with barely controlled anger.

"You honestly were expecting somebody else?" said Ashley, who was grinning hugely by this time. It had been awhile since she had had such a great time in Uhura's room.

"This isn't funny, Ashley!" snarled Uhura, as she gathered up Jim's clothes that were scattered around the floor and shoved them into Jim's hands, who was beginning to realize that he had worn out his welcome and was heading for the door.

"Of course not, this is utterly tragic and sad." said Ashley.

"Big day tomorrow." said Jim, as Uhura began pushing him out of the room.

"You're gonna fail." Uhura said, with utter disdain.

"Gailia, see you around." Jim called back to the Orion.

"Get out! It's both our asses if you're found in here after hours." said Uhura.

"I'll escort him out." said Ashley, with a sigh as she followed the two of them. "I'll say we were studying in the common room."

"Fine, fine, just get him out of here." said Uhura.

"If I pass, will you tell me your first name?" Jim asked.

"No. good night." said Uhura, as she opened the door and pushed Jim out into the hallway, with Ashley following.

"I think the fact that you picked up a transmission is very impress-" Jim's words were abruptly cut off by the closing of the door in his face.

Ashley's smirk had blossomed into an all-out grin by this point. "Wow, Jim! It's certainly rare that you find yourself unable to talk your way out of a situation, especially with your good looks."

"I was cut off-guard, all right" said Jim.

"Given the state your dressed in, that might be the understatement of the century. Now, please put your clothes on."

Jim smirked at her. "Why? I hope I'm not embarrassing you."

"Not at all. As a matter of fact, I was just admiring the view. However, if the wrong person should come around that corner, they might get the wrong idea."

"Yeah, it'd be shame if that happened."

Ashley rolled her eyes, and made a slight gesture with her hand, pushing some of the water molecules to form into a small cloud of rain above Jim's head. Feeling one or two of the drops that plopped on his head, Jim looked up to see he was in danger of getting soaked. Suddenly, a touch of his cocky attitude faded. "Uh, Ashley, you wouldn't, would you?"

Ashley raised an eyebrow at him. "You really want to test me?"

Jim didn't really need to answer that. This wouldn't have been the first time that Ashley had used her powers to nudge him when he was starting to get on her nerves. "All right, all right." said Jim, as he hurriedly started putting his clothes on. The rain cloud lingered till he was fully presentable. Once he was dressed, he shot a glare of annoyance at Ashley, though it wasn't entirely serious. "You really like tormenting me, don't you?"

"It's a fun hobby." said Ashley, as the water above him evaporated and vanished. "Now, come on, let's get out of here before someone gets suspicious."

The two of them made their way out of the dorm without arousing any further incident, which Ashley was grateful for. Once they were safely outside, Jim asked her, "So, are you going to be there for me test tomorrow?"

"Of course. How could I possibly miss your third epic failure?"

"Hey, I might _not_ fail. You don't know what I have planned."

Ashley shot him a look. "Maybe I can guess. However, I think I need to tell you that I've been thinking about your previous attempts to pass this test. Seeing you lose over and over again has become rather tiresome. And it would be rather exciting to see someone pass the _Kobayashi Maru_ for the first time in person. That being the case, I have a little present for you"

She handed him PADD, which Jim didn't recornize. "What's this?"

"The final piece of the puzzle," said Ashley, "The one you've been missing."

"I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about." said Jim.

"Come on, Jim. We're been partners for at least three rotations of labs together. You don't think I recognize such a distinct signature as yours'? Now, I may or may not have come across a similar one trying to access the main frame for the _Kobayashi Maru_ program. Whoever it was got through the Academy's main frame, but they tried several times without success to get to the _Kobyashi Maru_ specs. I thought he might be a friend of yours'. Let him know that he owes me big time for these."

Jim was to astonished to speak for a moment. Ashley may have had a reckless streak, a desire to push the rules as far as she possibly could. But, she normally stopped short of breaking them, which was essentially what she was doing right now. "Ashley, why?"

"Admittedly, my motives are not entirely altruistic. I've told you about my project, right? The one I've been building and researching and writing for two years?"

Jim nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I've heard you talk about it, a lot, often."

"I'm being serious, Jim. The entire point of the research project was part of a program that was supposed to help me be placed in a position that had something remotely to do with my focus on a starship. Now, thanks to one negative opinion, I could be right back where I started."

"What do you mean?"

"I just received word from one of my proctors this evening. He told me that my entire thesis was facetious and unprovable. Basically everything that I researched and worked on is now in danger of being for nothing. I could be right back where I started. That same person just happens to be the guy who programmed this test. I want to see him knocked down a peg or two."

"Revenge, Ash? That sounds very petty of you."

"Perhaps, but I'll enjoy seeing it happen."

"So, you know how to beat the test?"

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't. Either way, I'm certainly not going to tell you."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Jim, you honestly think that cheating in the real world is easier or quicker than doing about it by the book? This, Jim, you're going to have to earn. Besides, if I thought you couldn't do it, I certainly wouldn't have given you those specs."

Jim's confidant smirk returned, a look that Ashley had seen many times before. "So, you're basically giving me a dare?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I just happen to know it's the best way to motivate you."

"In that case, I suppose I'd better get to work." said Jim, "Thanks, Ashley. I won't forget this."

"You'd better not." said Ashley. "Don't let me down, Jim. I've got a lot of expectation riding on you."

Jim looked back at her and grinned, his old confidence returning. "Hey, have a little faith, Ashley. It's me, we're talking about, remember?"

"As if you would ever let me forget." said Ashley to herself, as she watched Jim hurry off to his dorm. She was already beginning to suspect that tomorrow's _Kobyashi Maru_ was going to be different from the dozens of others which she had worked on. Frankly, she was looking forward to enjoying the show.


	8. Kobayashi Maru

Kobayashi Maru:

It was a bit like watching the rerun of a particularly boring old earth soap opera. Jim was taking the _Kobayashi Maru_ test for the third time, and no one was really happy to be participating in what was, essentially, a waste of time.

All except Ashley, who was manning one of the counsels in the control room, and she was keenly following the sequence of events. If Jim's attitude on the simulation bridge were any indication, he clearly had something planned. She was anxious to see just how he had managed to succeed in rewriting the program.

She had gone over all the controls and subroutines twice over before any of the other personnel had arrived, and she hadn't been able to see any signs of foul play. She had been trying to hide a smirk throughout the entire simulation. She always enjoyed being challenged; if Jim had managed to get around even her critical eye, than she couldn't wait to see how he had done it.

Meanwhile, in the training simulation, Uhura was at Communications, while Leonard was at Tactical (she had no idea how Jim had managed to sucker him into doing it this time). Both were performing their roles with lackluster conviction. Uhura, especially, was making no attempt to hide her annoyance at having to play along with this charade.

"We're receiving a distress signal from the _USS Kobayashi Maru_." She said to Jim, as the simulation began. Her voice was practically dripping with contempt. "The ship has lost power and is stranded. Starfleet Command has ordered us to rescue them."

The only one who seemed to be even remotely enjoying himself was Jim, who was sitting on the Captain's chair of the training simulation, as though it were the grandest ship in the fleet. He wasn't nervous at all. Indeed, he seemed to be exuding more of his signature easy confidence than was usual. "Starfleet Command has ordered us to rescue them... Captain." He amended to Uhura's statement.

Uhura rolled her eyes, and turned away. McCoy seemed only slightly less enthusiastic about being there, but was giving slightly more effort to the proceedings. "Klingon vessels have entered the Neutral Zone. And they're firing at us."

At this point in the test, the Captain was supposed to be begin giving orders about trying to hail the Klingons or raising shields. Jim did neither. He didn't change his attitude. In fact, he took out an apple which he had somehow managed to smuggle into the testing room and took a large bite out of it. "That's okay."

Everyone engaged in the simulation turned to look at Jim in disbelief. "It's okay?" Bones repeated, making no attempt to hide his confusion.

"Yeah, don't worry about it." said Jim, still retaining his breezy confidence.

In the control room, two instructors who were administering the test were as puzzled as those on the mock bridge. "Did he say 'don't worry about it'?" One asked the other.

The other assessor didn't have an answer to the question. "What's he doing?"

No one but Jim himself would have been able to answer. At her station, Ashley was beginning to feel slightly anxious. Time was running out for Jim. If he didn't do something soon, he wouldn't have any chance. "Come on, Jim," She muttered, under her breath. "I'm rooting for you, but give me something to work with."

Back on the bridge simulation, things appeared to be going from bad to worse. "Three more Klingon warbirds decloaking. They're targeting our ship. I don't suppose this is a problem either?"

Jim seemed to consider the question for all of half a minute, before he dismissed it. "Nah."

"They're firing, Captain." said the weapons officer.

Again, Jim did not seem in the least bothered by this. "Alert medical to prepare to receive all crewmembers of the damaged ship."

"And how do you expect us to rescue them when we're surrounded by Klingons, Captain?" sneered Uhura.

Jim had already turned to her, repeating his command with his usual devil may care attitude. "Alert medical."

Uhura ground her teeth together in wordless anger and frustration, before she turned to start putting in the commands.

"Our ship is being hit. Shields at 60%." said Leonard.

"I understand." said Jim.

"Should we, I don't know, fire back?" Leonard asked, irritated.

"No." said Jim, as he took a bit out of his apple.

"Of course not." said Leonard, who honestly wasn't surprised to hear that glib answer.

And that was when it happened. Ashley's station suddenly beeping and blinking on and off, as did the other screens around the testing area and simulation area. Ashley would have tried to stop it if she could, but she barely got in a few key strokes before the entire system which powered the _Kobayashi Maru_ sequence crashed completely.

A few seconds later, amid the confused murmur from techs and assessors alike, the lights and monitors came back on. And, it was immediately obvious that something was different. As Ashley watched the system reboot, she couldn't help but smile as she read over the parameters of the program. She had told him that he needed to earn it, and damn if he hadn't completely exceeded her expectations.

As for the rest of the administrators and participants on the simulation bridge, all that they could see was that the test itself had somehow been reset, and it was not behaving in any way which was familiar. No one seemed to know what was going on. "The _Kobayashi Maru_ is still in distress, but... the Klingons have stopped firing." said Uhura, who was understandably confused.

Jim, however, was very pleased. Only now did he start giving orders that made any sense. "Arm photons. Prepare to fire on the Klingon warbirds."

"Jim, their shields are up." Leonard reminded Jim irritably.

"Are they?" Jim asked, as though Leonard were an idiot for asking such a simple question.

Leonard rolled his eyes, and looked back at his monitor, just to confirm the obvious. And he was stunned with the readings he was getting. "No."

"Fire on all enemy ships. One photon each should do, let's not waste ammunition."

"Target lock acquired on all warbirds." said the weapons officer, "Firing."

A moment later, the photons shot out towards all the warbirds, destroying each of the Klingon vessels in a brilliant display of fireworks. It was a spectacle that Jim seemed to be really enjoying. Once that task was completed, he turned back to Uhura. "Begin rescue on the stranded crew."

He got up and began ticking of what he had just accomplished, coming only a little bit short of bragging. "So, we've eliminated all enemy ships. No one on-board was injured and the successful rescue of the _Kobayashi Maru_ crew is underway."

Taking another large bite out of the apple, he looked up to the testing room, acknowledging their presence for the first time. "Anything else?"

Both on the fake bridge and in the control room, all mouths were agape in shocked amazement. Not only had Jim succeeded in every requirement of the simulation, but he had actually passed the test which was supposed to be unbeatable.

"How the hell'd that kid beat your test?" asked one of the test administrators to the original designer of the _Kobayashi Maru_.

Ashley took more than a little satisfaction in seeing Spock's calm, cool exterior transform for a moment into astonished surprise. He clearly had no idea how a lowly cadet had just managed to best his precious _Kobayashi Maru_ test. "I do not know."

Honesty, just for that reaction, the entire thing had been worth it.

* * *

None of the other students really knew the purpose of the assembly, only that it had been mandatory for every cadet to attend. The buzz of conversation between various groups filled the vast room, while up above the main hall on the second level, another set of eyes was watching the proceedings with the silent worry of an older sibling.

Danielle was probably one of the few in the room who knew, or at least had a suspicion of what this assembly was for. Unfortunately, she had a very bad feeling that it would involve her brother in a way that would only get him into trouble.

She was searching for Jim in the vast sea of red below her, when she saw Captain Pike coming towards. "I see I'm not the only one who was worried about the consequences of Jim's boneheaded antics." He said, as he stopped beside her, and cast his gaze down into the assembly.

"I wish I could say that was a harsh assessment." said Danielle, "When Jim told me that he had managed to pass the test, I knew that something was wrong. He was way to pleased with himself, the way he always used to look when he had managed to get away with something that was against the rules."

Captain Pike raised an eyebrow. "He didn't actually tell you that he cheated, did he?"

"Not in so many words. Honestly, I find it hard to believe that Jim even thinks that he's done anything wrong. Whether or not that confidence will help him at all, I have no idea."

Pike shook his head. "He manages to pass all of the most difficult classes in three years, and he's about to ruin it all just because he couldn't stand the thought of losing."

Below them on the main floor, the murmur of conversation died down as the Academy Council began to file into the room, and sat down at the semi-circle of chairs at the front of the hall. The rest of the cadets also took their seats. Danielle finally found her brother, who was sitting with Bones and Ashley. Jim seemed somewhat fidgety, which Danielle found a little surprising. Perhaps he had never thought that he would be discovered. Now that he would actually have to give a defense, maybe he didn't know for sure what he was going to say.

As soon as silence had settled over the assembly, the head of the Academy, Admiral Richard Barnett began the proceedings without preamble. "James T. Kirk, step forward."

Jim got to this feet, and came up to one of the podiums in front of the Council. "An incident has occurred, that concerns the entire student body. Cadet Kirk, evidence has been submitted to this Council, suggesting you violated Regulation 17.43. Is there anything you care to say before we begin?"

Jim felt himself exposed, with every eye in the room staring at him. Yet, if there was anything all those command classes had taught him, it was to be cool under pressure. He refused to be intimidated. He stood a little taller, and looked the Admiral squarely in the eye. "Yes, sir, I do." He said, in a tone that was steady and confidant. "I believe that I have the right to face my accuser directly."

"He's done his research. I have to give him that." said Pike, "Jim tends to have more control when he he can go to face to face with someone."

Danielle nodded, well aware of the truth of that statement. "I have to say that I'm surprised he's the only one up there." She looked over at Pike. "You must suspect that Ashley somehow helped him out, don't you? The two of them always seem to make the most trouble together."

"Of course, I think that she might have helped him." said Pike, with a sigh, "Either she covered her tracks to well or your brother didn't want her to face the backlash." He looked down at Ashley, who seemed to be sitting at the edge of her seat, paying close attention to the proceedings. "Even I looked over the records, and I couldn't find anything that could be traced back to her."

Below them, Admiral Barnett looked a little past Kirk to a specific face in the audience. At the silent signal, a figure in the dark Grey uniform of a graduate stood up and met Jim's gaze levelly. When she saw the familiar face, Danielle buried her head in her hands and stifled a groan. "Oh, great, this is going to be disaster."

Pike looked at her with a confused expression. "You know Commander Spock?"

"I've run into him, on occasion."

Pike raised a slight eyebrow at Danielle's evasion. "Commander Spock isn't the type of person one 'runs into on occasion', Danielle. Is there something concerning him that I should know about?"

"I believe that question would fall under a version of confidentiality, Captain. After all, we all need someone to talk to, regardless of what species we happen to be." Pike didn't seem entirely convinced, but he accepted the answer for the time being with a nod. "To put it simply, though, I know well enough to know that he and Jim are complete opposites. This will be like trying to mix oil and water."

Spock came down the stairs and took up residence at the other podium. The atmosphere between the two of them was already crackling with tension. "Cadet Kirk, this is Commander Spock, one of our most distinguished graduates. He's programmed the _Kobayashi Maru_ for the last four years." The Admiral nodded at Spock. "Commander?"

It was now Spock's turn to speak. "Cadet Kirk, upon investigation, it has become obvious that you somehow managed to install and activate a subroutine to the programming code, thereby changing the conditions of the test."

"Your point being?" Jim asked, trying to keep his tone level.

"In academic vernacular," clarified Barnett, "You cheated."

Jim was not at all swayed by this blunt accusation, nor was he terribly impressed with his Vulcan accuser. "Let me ask you something, I think we all know the answer to. The test itself is a cheat, isn't it? You programmed it to be unwinnable."

"Your argument precludes the possibility of a no-win scenario."

"I don't believe in no-win scenarios." Jim shot back at once.

"Then not only have you violated the rules," Spock said, not at all deterred by the hard edge in Jim's voice. "You have failed to understand the principal lesson of the test."

"Please, enlighten me." said Jim, in an almost bored tone.

"You of all people should know, Cadet Kirk. A captain cannot cheat death."

Jim bristled visibly when he heard this, and even Danielle felt a slight shiver skate down her spine. She had learned and studied enough of Vulcan psychology during her time at the Academy and her personal interactions with Spock himself, to know that sometimes, the cool logic which they so prized could hurt worse than any insult spoken in the heat of implacable hatred.

On the other hand, she wasn't exactly surprised that Spock had decided to use a pointed jab at Jim's past in order to try and get under his skin. Vulcans may have been logical, but they could probably also be accused of pride. For Spock, the fact that his test had been bested by a mere Cadet with no experience had no doubt stung just a little. He would have probably said that such actions were not logical. For Jim to learn some sort of lesson from the experience by any means necessary was the only logical course of action to correct such in imbalance.

He also couldn't have chosen a better weakness to exploit on Jim's part. Despite his excelling at the Academy in the last three years (and until this event, having the promise of a very bright future in Starfleet), he still struggled with living in his father's shadow. Jim had never quite been able to escape the doubt that he would ever be able to live up to the sacrifice his father made. Being reminded of it in this way, in front of all these people, was almost enough for Jim's control to slip ever so slightly.

"I, of all people?" Jim responded tightly to the unspoken, coolly delivered taunt in the Vulcan's voice.

"Your father, Lieutenant George Kirk, assumed command of his vessel before being killed in action, did he not?"

Jim, however, didn't play by the rules. He wasn't going to let this Vulcan get the better of him like this. If he wanted to play with under-handed tactics, so could Jim. "I don't think you like the fact that I beat your test."

Spock didn't seem at all side-tracked by Jim's insolence. Another advantage of being completely devoted to logic, Danielle had noticed, was that Vulcans could almost effortlessly between different tactics. Because of that, Jim could probably insult Spock all day, and the Vulcan wouldn't have batted an eye. As such, he side-stepped Jim's attempt at luring him into a childish display of defending his pride, to bring the proceeding back to the main point. " Furthermore, you have failed to divine the purpose of the test."

"Enlighten me again." said Jim, through gritted teeth.

"The purpose is to experience fear." said Spock, lecturing Jim as though he were a first year Academy student who had no idea how the way of the world worked. "Fear in the face of certain death. To accept that fear, and maintain control of oneself and one's crew. This is a quality expected in every Starfleet captain."

Jim glared angrily at the Vulcan, and was on the verge of delivering a devastating replay, when a uniformed officer hurried into the assembly hall. He went directly to Admiral Barnett and began whispering in his ear. Danielle was almost relieved. Had it not been for the interruption, she got the feeling that the debate between Jim and Spock could very well have gone for hours.

However, as the officer continued whispering in Barnett's ear, it soon became clear to everyone in the hall that there was something very wrong. Barnett's face began to grow worried. At last, he dismissed the officer, and turned to the rest of the Cadets. Danielle could tell by the look on his face that whatever he had been told, the situation had suddenly grown far more serious than a simple infraction of Academy rules. "We've received a distress call from Vulcan."

Danielle saw an alarmed expression appear on Spock's face when he heard the news. The announcement itself caused a ripple of disbelief and uncertainty to sweep through the assembly of Cadets. "With our primary fleet engaged in the Laurentian system, I hereby order all cadets to report to Hangar One immediately. Dismissed."

Barnett's command caused further whispers of stunned shock to circulate through the room. The implications of the order was obvious to all of them: every single one of the cadets was now being called to active duty before any of them had even graduated. Everything which they had learned in the classroom would now have to be applied to real life.

"It might have bought Jim some breathing time, if only for a little while." said Pike, "Let's hope he learns his lesson. You had better get moving, Cadet. Starfleet captains don't usually take kindly to officers who are late for their first assignment."

"I'll certainly remember that." Danielle glanced down into the crowded hall, which was now swarming with moving bodies. "I had better go and grab my brother before he gets himself into trouble simply getting to the hangar bay." She said.

"Probably a good idea." Captain Pike, as the two of them began moving to the turbolift.

The Council rose to their feet, and exited the room, all of them conferring with each other in hushed voices. A new sense of urgency seemed to overtake everyone in the room, as they moved from their seats and headed for the exits. Jim was left at his podium, suddenly forgotten and obsolete. The only ones who seemed to take any notice of him now were Bones and Ashley, who came up to him in the crowd.

"That was certainly a battle of wills." said Ashley, "I was actually enjoying watching the two of you try to tear each other apart."

"I'm so glad that I was able to provide your entertainment for the day." grumbled Jim.

"Don't worry, I was rooting for you the whole time."

That show of support really didn't make Jim feel any better. "Who was that pointy-eared bastard?" He demanded, to no one in particular.

"I don't know, but I like him." said Bones, being his usual unhelpful self.

"Come on, you two, before they leave without us." said Ashley, and the three of them headed for the hanger bay, to face an unknown danger which had unexpectedly been thrust upon them.


	9. Bending the Rules

Bending the Rules:

The cadets had believed that the trial of Cadet Kirk would be the most exciting thing which they would have to look forward to in the remaining months they had till graduation. As that was still three months left until graduation, they had needed all the excitement they could get.

The distress call from Vulcan had changed all that. The cadets gathered in ordered divisions within the immense hanger of Starfleet, waiting and listening intently as officers read off their names and ship assignments. The same thought was running through all their minds: whatever this next mission bought, it was going to be a trial by fire for them all.

Ashley, Jim, Bones and Danielle had all arrived in the hanger together. Ashley was feeling a strange combination of excitement and terror, like the very first time when she had been able to control fire. She had been working for this moment for as long as she could remember. It didn't really matter how or why it was happening; this was where her journey with Starfleet would truly begin. When her name was called for the _Farragut_ , it took all her self-discipline to retain a cool and professional demeanor, when inside she was grinning like an idiot.

However, her excitement was soon mixed with dismay when she realized that the last names on the list had been read, and Jim's name hadn't been called. She glanced over at him, seeing that he was even more shocked than she was at this realization.

"He didn't call my name." muttered Jim, giving voice to both their thoughts, as well as heir confusion. He hurried over to the commander who had been calling the names of the other cadets. "Commander, sir, you didn't call my name. Kirk, Jame T.?"

The commander didn't even turn to look at him in reply. "Kirk, you're on academic suspension. That means your grounded, until the Academy board rules."

Without so much as waiting for an objection from any of them, the commander immediately turned and walked away, probably forgetting about Jim Kirk the very next instant. But Jim felt as though he had just been punched in the stomach, then slammed on the floor and beaten to a pulp. He had once been dismissive of Starfleet. In the last three years, however, the burning desire to prove himself as something more in the eyes of both his sister and himself had become the driving force behind everything he did. Now, he was about to be left behind again, and the idea frankly terrified him.

His sister and two best friends could do little except share in his disbelief and offer him what support they could. Danielle especially would probably have been willing to stay behind and give him whatever support she could, even if it meant not reporting to her post. He would have only needed to ask her, and she would have done it in a heartbeat. And it was for that very reason that he knew he couldn't even consider it.

"Jim, the board will rule in you favor. Most likely." said Leonard, trying to sound reassuring, though as always he couldn't be completely optimistic.

"They'll have to." said Ashley, "I'm sure they were expecting you to break under the pressure. Now, they'll have to reinstate, just to see if all their predictions about you failing have any ounce of truth in them."

Danielle said nothing, not that she really needed to. Jim had seen hat desperately helpless look on her face to many times. She may have disagreed with him about his solution to the _Kobayashi Maru_ simulation. But even she seemed to think that the consequences had perhaps been to severe. She wanted this moment for him, just as much as he did. However, no matter how much she may wanted to stay behind, they both knew that there was nothing she could do. There was a crisis, and Starfleet needed everyone at their posts. She and Bones were needed on the _Enterprise_.

Bones was just as reluctant to leave as Danielle, but even he was aware that their time was limited. "Look, Jim, we gotta go." said Bones, who was just as reluctant to leave as Danielle was.

Reeling from shock, Jim still managed a half-heated smile. He was not going to drag everyone into a pity party for him. He wasn't going to stand in Danielle's way; she didn't deserve the same punishment which he himself had been saddled with. "Yeah, get going. It'd be a shame if you lost your new ranks just because you were worried about me."

Danielle stepped forward and gave her brother a quick hug. "It will be all right, Jim. You'll see."

"Yeah, I know." said Jim, "Be careful out there, all right? Be safe."

"Yes, of course." Reluctantly, Danielle gently pulled away from Jim, and she and Leonard began heading for the shuttle. That left only Ashley standing beside him.

"Jim, are you sure that-"

Still wearing that false half-smile, he waved her off. "Hey, don't worry about me. I'll be fine. You take care of yourself out there to, all right?"

Ashley tried to match his nonchalant attitude, though both of them were failing miserably at making the act convincing. "Of course. I want to see the expression on that Vulcan's face when you actually manage to beat him at his own game."

They were both trying to put on a brave face, but the truth was that they were both dreading having to say goodbye. They had been fast friends from day one, and the idea of having to face her first assignment without him, had sapped a lot of her initial excitement. For Jim, being alone on earth was just about the worst fate that he could imagine.

Luckily, for both of them, this wasn't going to be goodbye. Danielle and Leonard had barely gotten ten feet away before they slowed and finally stopped. They looked at each other. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" He asked.

"I believe so, especially if it involves bending the rules."

Leonard would have liked very much to blame the boneheaded nature of this scheme on Danielle, but he knew he really couldn't. With Danielle, he just needed to think of trouble, and she would go right along with him.

"Damn it." He muttered, as he did an abrupt about face and the two of them went back to Jim and Ashley.

To say that Ashley and Jim were completely stunned when Danielle and Bones came up right behind them, and started to drag them through the crowd of cadets would have been an understatement.

"Come with me." said Leonard.

"Uh, guys, where are we going?" Ashley asked.

"Just trust us." said Danielle, as the four of them entered a side room off from the main hanger.

"Somehow, I'm having difficulty doing that." muttered Ashley.

"Yeah, I'm not feeling it either." said Jim, as Leonard and Danielle began searching for something amidst the crates, boxes and refrigerated vials in the storeroom. "What are you two doing?"

"We're doin' you a favor." said Leonard, brusquely. He seemed to have finally located what he was looking for, taking a vial of medicine from a small container, and beginning to fill a hypo-spray. Danielle was doing the same.

"I couldn't leave you there looking all pathetic. And I knew that Danielle wouldn't stop feelin' guilty about it. Take a seat."

"Would someone please tell me why _I'm_ here." said Ashley, "I'm not assigned to the _Enterprise_. I could get into big trouble if this is going where I think it's going."

"As if that's ever stopped you before." Danielle said, as she worked. "Besides, would you have just let us wander off without you?"

Before Ashley could respond, Danielle jammed the hypo-spray into her neck none to gently. "Ouch! Geez, Danni, watch where you're pointing that thing."

"It was intentional, actually. By the way, I apologize in advance. You might start feeling a bit dizzy here in the next few seconds."

Ashley was about to say that all of this was crazy, when she suddenly felt a violent physical change overtake her entire body. "Why am I sweating?" she asked, more than a little confused, "And if I'm sweating, why am I suddenly feeling cold to?"

Danielle, who had been getting a scanner from a nearby shelf, paused as though this revelation came as something of a surprise. "Odd, I thought those symptoms came later. Doesn't matter, I suppose. The end result will still be the same, and that's the important thing."

Ashley still didn't really know what was going on, but her usual eloquence of finding the right question to ask, or to even make some sort of sarcastic comment was rapidly fading. The bone-chilling cold that she had become aware of only seconds before beginning to spread throughout her entire body. Her fingers were already numb, and she was shivering violently. At the same time, beads of sweat were starting run down her face, her skin hot to the touch.

She hadn't felt this sick since her powers had first started to manifest themselves during her early teenage years. Such symptoms hadn't been pleasant when she had been sixteen, but there had been medication to help with the transition. Right now, she didn't think that she would be that fortunate.

Her condition did not go unnoticed. "Danielle, what did you do to Ashley?" asked Jim, looking concerned, "She's turning white." Jim was so concerned about Ashley's predicament, however, that he didn't even see that he was next.

"Hold still, Jim." said Leonard, "I'm going to give you a vaccine against viral infection from Mevarian mud fleas."

He jammed the hypo-spray into Jim's neck, eliciting a cry of surprised pain from his unfortunate friend. "Ow! What for?"

Leonard was also taking a scanner from the shelves nearby, and looping it over his shoulder. "Give you the symptoms."

"What are you talking about?" gasped Jim, still recovering from the shock of having a sharp object driven into his neck.

"You're going to start to lose vision in your left eye." Leonard declared, as though this sort of thing were an everyday occurrence.

Jim immediately noticed that the doctor's prediction was already coming true. "Yeah, I already have."

"Oh, and you're going to get a really bad headache and a flop sweat."

No sooner had the words left Leonard's mouth, than Jim grabbed his skull, feeling as though someone was drilling dozens of holes into his brain.

"I'm pretty sure that there's some sort of law against using innocent bystanders as lab rats." said Ashley

who was starting to feel the dizziness which Danielle had warned her about a few seconds ago.

Through this entire thing, Danielle and Bones had displayed nothing beyond that of an entirely clinical manner. Judging by their reactions alone, this seemed to be something which they did all the time. As their sense of equilibrium began to fade, Danielle caught Ashley and Jim was taken up by Leonard before the two of them could make an unfortunate acquaintance with the floor.

"It looks like you're proceeding right on schedule, Ashley." said Danielle, as she scanned her.

"Wha-?" said Ashley, who was having difficulty forming a coherent thought, let alone a sentence.

"Don't worry. The symptoms are only meant to simulate a panic attack. You're not actually having one."

"You did what?!"

"Well, how else was I supposed to get you on the _Enterprise_? Leonard, how's it going on your end?"

"Great, perfect."

Jim couldn't consciously remember the last time he had felt this rotten, but it was difficult for him to appear properly outraged when he couldn't stand straight. "You call this a favor?" He managed too croak out in disbelief.

"Yeah, you owe me one." said Leonard, as he pulled Jim's arm around his shoulder, holding him up as the two of them began to move from the side room into the main hanger.

"Come on, Ashley." said Danielle, as she took hold of Ashley's arm and hauled her after the two men.

The shuttles were starting their final lift-off preparations when the two doctors and their unwilling patients arrived at the hatch. There was a officer standing by the door with a PADD, and as he turned to face them, Danielle could tell by his harried expression that he had probably been running ragged for the better part of a twelve hour shift. The combination of a distress call and cadets being thrust into the line of duty for the first time, along with the pressure to make sure that everything ran smoothly was only adding to his stress level. Danielle was hoping that he wouldn't stop to question the circumstances to closely.

As they came up, the officer's reprimand for being late for take-off died on his lips when he saw Jim's terrible condition and Ashley appearing to be on the edge of near hysteria. "What happened to those two?"

Without so much as skipping a beat, Leonard said, "He's suffering from an inflamed epidermis complicated by excessive swelling of the ego region of the cerebral cortex." The officer seemed to be tying to keep up, but the blank look on his face showed that he had no idea what Leonard had just said.

The officer took a step backwards, a look of worry crossing his face. "Is it... contagious?"

"Wholly internalized. No danger to anyone else. He should be fine, as long as the fever he's suffering from doesn't boil his brain."

Jim's eye grew wide with horrified shock, and he might have delivered several obscenities into Leonard's ears, if his tongue had still worked.

The officer turned to look at Ashley's pale, quivering form. "And, uh, her?"

"Nothing quite so dramatic, I'm afraid." said Danielle, with the same nonchalance as Leonard. "This is just a panic attack. Cadet Pike here suffers from Aqua-phobia."

"Aqua-phobia?" sputtered the officer, with confusion. "Why should she suffer a panic attack from that? We're nowhere near a source of water."

"Yes, but Cadet Pike is a Deviant. She can control water. As you can imagine, this can create something of a problem when she conjures water unexpectedly. She just had a severe attack a few minutes ago."

"Uh, okay." said the officer, again not entirely sure about the ins and outs of the science of what he had just heard. But the shuttle was about to take off, so he didn't inquire any further.

He ran his scanner over both Ashley and Jim. "Kirk, James T. Pike, Ashley. Neither of them are cleared for duty aboard the _Enterprise._ As a matter of fact, Pike is assigned to the _Farragut_ and Kirk is not cleared for duty anywhere."

"I am cleared for duty aboard the _Enterprise_. So is my colleague. These two people are our patients. Medical Code states the treatment and transportation of a patient is to be determined at the discretion of their attending physicians, which is us."

The officer hesitated a little, so Danielle jumped in. "Look, we're under a red alert. We have a limited amount of time. I don't suppose that you would like to be the one to tell Captain Pike why the _Enterprise_ warped into a crisis without two of it's senior medical officers?"

The officer was silent, and Danielle found herself holding her breath. The officer's body language indicated that he was stressed and impossibly behind schedule. If they had planned this right, he wouldn't be willing to quibble about semantics.

Her hunch proved to be correct. The officer finally waved them through. "As you were."

"As _you_ were." muttered Leonard, as he and Danielle began dragging Ashley and Jim behind them into the shuttle.

The pale and haggard looks of both Jim and Ashley ensured that everyone in the shuttle gave them a wide berth. They had arrived not a moment to soon, as the shuttle began to lift off almost as soon as they had secured themselves. As they cleared the shuttle bay and started climbing up through the atmosphere above the San Francisco Bay area, Danielle noticed that Leonard was clutching the arms of his seat so hard that his knuckles were turning white. Three years in Starfleet had not cured Leonard of his fear of flying and space. The lift-off was always his most hated part of the business.

"Leonard, try not to faint on me. I can only handle one panic attack at a time."

Leonard glared at her, as the beads of sweat began to break out on his neck and forehead. "I really do wonder why we're together, sometimes."

"Because you'd be lost and depressed without me, sweetie."

The shuttle which they were riding on was soon joined by dozens more, until a small fleet was rising ever higher into the stratosphere. Bright blue sky gradually gave way to the darkness of space and starlight. Earth orbit was anything but still, as various other shuttlecraft and small ships glided in a graceful dance of traffic between the more massive and powerful ships which comprised the main fleet.

Jim was not in the best frame of mind to enjoy the trip. He was so hot; every drop of moisture in his body had decided to start boiling at maximum temperature. His skin was bathed in sweat, and he still couldn't see clearly through one of his eyes. What was more, though his past forays into space had never bothered him before, this time every slight bump or shift in the shuttle's trajectory was causing his stomach to lurch uncomfortably.

"I might throw up on you." He muttered shakily to Bones. He almost wished that he would throw up on his so-called friend, just to have the satisfaction of giving Bones a little taste of the misery which he had inflicted.

However, Bones didn't seem to hear Jim. Indeed, his gaze had been drawn by the view out the window. Despite his usual reluctance for space travel, his expression was one of awe. "Jim, you gotta see this." When Jim didn't immediately respond, Bones turned to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Jim, look."

Jim turned to Bones for the sole purpose of delivering a withering put down about letting him die in peace, but the words died before they could even be formed. For a brief second, Jim forgot all about his nausea, feverish heat and even the vision in his left eye seemed to clear as he took in the sight of the ship which they were approaching.

Three years before, Jim and Danielle had stood in front of the River Side Shipyard, looking up at the skeletal structure of a ship that had yet to fly. Now, they saw her in her full, completed glory. The _Enterprise_ was the newest ship of the fleet. Even at rest as she was in the docking port of one of the numerous space stations above earth, every inch of her hull exuded the promise of power and speed. However, there was a grace and elegance in her construction at the same time. She was sleek and beautiful, as though she had been built not just by engineers and scientists, but by artists as well. The _Enterprise_ seemed more than just a ship; she was a work of art.

"Wow." Jim breathed in awe and amazement, his heart hammering for a few moments with a wordless excitement and wonder.

Jim had looked up at the ship three years before, and felt a sense of connection, a promise with something that had yet to be built. Now, looking at this finished symphony of technology and craftsmanship, he felt that same connection, only more strongly. He wouldn't have been able to explain what it was that drew him to the _Enterprise_. All he knew for certain was that seeing the _Enterprise_ for the first time in all her glory, make him feel as though he were coming home.

Unfortunately, that magical moment was just that, a moment. The very instant they entered the shuttle bay of the _Enterprise_ and touched down, all of Jim's former symptoms seemed to crash into him once more, and he was reminded, again, of how he sometimes hated having a best friend who was a doctor.

The shuttle bay was crowded with people, some of them wide-eyed cadets facing their first journey into deep space and others seasoned veterans who had seen more than their share of missions. In the crush of the crowd, no one seemed to question the rather bizarre traveling arrangements of the little group.

"Bones, I don't feel right. I feel like I'm leaking." said Jim, weakly.

Leonard was about to make a smart retort when he suddenly spotted a familiar and thoroughly unwelcome face appearing through the crowd. "Hell, it's that pointy-eared bastard."

He hurriedly pushed Jim into a side corridor, followed quickly by Danielle and Ashley. "I never thought I'd live to see the day when I tried hiding from my friend." muttered Danielle.

"You have an odd choice in friends." Ashley muttered back.

Though the _Enterprise_ was the newest ship of the fleet, Danielle and Leonard were able to easily make their way through the corridors and hallways of the ship without arousing to much attention. Finally, they were able to make it to sickbay. As with every other part of the ship, Sickbay was buzzing with activity.

"Where are we?" Jim asked, as Leonard lugged him over to one of the bio-beds.

"Medical bay." said Leonard.

"This is so not worth it." said Jim, who still looked in rough shape.

"I may have found the one thing that I can agree with you wholeheartedly on." said Ashley, as Danielle propped her up on a bed next to Jim.

"A little suffering's good for the soul." said Leonard.

"There's some truth to that, even if it's a bit more complicated than fortune cookie logic." said Danielle.

Jim, who was still able to grin flirtatiously at a passing nurse despite his condition, turned his attention back to Leonard. "My mouth's itchy, is that normal?"

"Well, those symptoms won't last long." said Leonard, as he got another hypo-spray ready. "I'm going to give you a mild sedative."

Jim was slumped on the bio-bed, looking only slightly better than death warmed over. "Argh, I wish I didn't know you."

"Don't be such an infant." said Leonard, displaying exactly zero sympathy. He slammed the hypo-spray into Jim's neck, who once more cried in pained annoyance.

"How long is it supposed to..." Jim fell back on the bed, falling unconscious mid-sentence.

"Unbelievable." Leonard said, as he rolled his eyes in despair.

"If you're thinking of trying to make me fall asleep, I wouldn't suggest you waste a sedative on me." Ashley said, "I don't think I could fall asleep now even if you gave me a gallon on that stuff."

"You should be feeling better a lot faster than Jim." said Danielle, "Just stay quiet and don't call attention to yourself until we're underway."

"No problem there." said Ashley, as she flopped onto her back. The room was spinning, and she still felt the occasional shiver rack her body. She didn't really know how she had wound up in this whole scheme, or if she even could have prevented it. Either way, it was to late now. She was onboard the _Enterprise_ , whether she wanted to be or not. There was nothing she could do except ride it out and hope that somehow, everything would work out.


	10. A True Friend

A True Friend:

Ashley had not joined Starfleet to be sick. She had lived practically her whole life on a star ship. She knew that it wasn't all excitement and glory. She knew and accepted that some days were going to be incredibly boring. What she was not going to accept was that that her first real mission in space would be spent feeling sick to her stomach after being injected with who knows what.

Still, she supposed it could be worse. At least she only felt really tired and thirsty. Jim had had his entire body put through a shredder before having it be put back together in only a haphazard fashion.

"We certainly are a fine pair, aren't we?" She muttered to Jim, even thought she knew he couldn't hear her and if anyone heard her speaking to an unconscious person, they would question her sanity. At this point, she didn't really care.

"First mission into deep space, and neither of us are supposed to be here." She sighed, and swallowed, trying to do something to relieve the dryness in her throat. "You're grounded, and I'm not even assigned to this ship. My dad's going to kill me, and you know he's going to find out. He always does."

She rolled onto her back and looked at the bright lights of the ceiling above her. "I guess if I'm going to be in trouble, I might as well get into it with you. Heaven knows we've had enough of these circumstances over the years."

Ashley had first stepped in to help Jim without really knowing who he was. Friendship had quickly grown from that event, as they realized that they had a great deal in common. However, it hadn't been until six months into Jim's first year at the Academy, when he would have been able to repay the favor.

It was no secret that half of downtown San Francisco's bars derived half their clientele from Academy students looking to unwind after a long day of exams, lectures, and simulations. It was on one such night that Jim had asked Ashley to join him and his girl of the month named Theresa for a night out.

Ashley had never met Theresa before, but that hardly surprised her. Jim's charm and good looks had gotten him more attention from the female demographic Academy students than she preferred to think of. Still, she seemed pleasant enough, as evidenced by the fact that she didn't seem at all defensive by Jim asking another woman out on their date, or whatever they considered it to be.

"So, Jim tells me you're focus is on computer programming." said Theresa, as they finally found a table near the back of the bar.

Ashley, who had already gotten a drink, smiled. "That's true. I won't give you the full on lecture, as most people find it excessively boring."

"Can't be much more exciting than mine, I'm sure." said Theresa, with a smile. "I'm sure a lot of people would be put to sleep by planetary geology."

"In that case, I guess Jim is going to have to pretend to be interested in whatever it is we're saying for the evening." said Ashley.

"And if I think the conversation is getting dull, I can just change the subject to one that is infinitely more interesting." said Jim.

"Which is yourself, mainly." said Theresa.

"Good to see that you've picked up on that relatively quickly." said Ashley, "Understanding that Jim's primary interest is himself will make everything easier, trust me."

"Oh, I think I'm more than capable of distracting him, a little." said Theresa, smiling coyly at Jim.

As Jim got up to get himself and Theresa some drinks, she and Ashley passed the next few minutes by making small talk about their classes. However, when Theresa caught something out of the corner of her eye, she called out to another cadet who had just entered the bar. "Oh, Adam, hey, over here."

Ashley looked over in the direction of where Theresa was looking. The male cadet was dressed out of uniform, the same as they were. He was tall, relatively good looking with dark hair and brown eyes. When he saw Theresa, he returned the wave and made his way over to them. "You don't mind if Adam joins us for a few minutes, do you?" asked Theresa.

Ashley shrugged, grinning easily. "Hey, the more, the merrier. Besides, he's cute. Maybe we could make this a double date."

Adam came up to the table. "Theresa, I'm really glad to see you. It's been a pretty stressful few days for me." Noticing Ashley sitting there, he managed to smile at her. "Oh, sorry, I didn't see that you were with someone."

"Ashley," said Ashley, as she held out her hand, "I'm just along for the ride, actually. Care to join us? There's room for one more."

"Don't mind if I do. I need someone to complain to about how idiotic my professors are being."

Adam sat down beside Ashley, as Theresa looked over at her friend with a worried expression on her face. "I don't really like the sound of that. What happened?"

Adam's face grew serious, almost angry. "It's my professor for interstellar chemistry, Commander Richardson. We have to work with a partner for the entirety of the semester, and you'll never guess who he paired me with?"

"Someone who doesn't show up?" asked Ashley, "I had one of those partners for one of my first year classes. It drove me nuts."

Adam laughed humorlessly, as though he saw a joke in Ashley's words which neither of them yet knew. "The ironic thing is that the opposite is actually true, Ashley. My partner, this cadet named Peter, he creates more trouble by being there then by being absent."

"I'm not sure I follow you." said Ashley.

Adam's face twisted into an expression of acute distaste. "He's a Deviant. Told me the first day, thought it should be something that I know."

Theresa's eyes grew wide with a horrified expression. "A Deviant? You have to work with a Deviant for the entire semester? Oh, Adam, that's terrible. What does this Peter do?"

"That's the worse part of it. He told me that he's an empath. He can influence the emotions of other people. I just can't get comfortable around him. I mean, how do I know when he's trying to get into my head? How do I know if he's not just forcing me to do all of the hard work while he gets the easy stuff?"

Ashley's enjoyment in the conversation had swiftly started to dwindle. She had hoped, at first, that she was misunderstanding what Adam was saying. But there could be no mistaking the cold, harsh disdain which colored both Adam and Theresa's voices. "Now, come on, Adam." she said, trying to keep her voice light and unconcerned, "It can't be that bad."

"Oh, but it is." said Adam, "It's even worse because Commander Richardson doesn't even seem to know the danger. I asked him if I could change partners, but he wouldn't let me."

"Didn't he even hear you out?" said Theresa, "Surely he must know how dangerous having an empath in his class can be. I mean, doesn't he know that this empath could try and influence the way he teaches the class? Richardson could probably be going easy on him, without even being aware of it."

"Exactly, Peter's probably using his powers to cheat. But I couldn't tell Richardson that. You know how touchy Starfleet is when it comes to complaints about Deviants." Adam shook his head. "Honestly, it's ridiculous how much special treatment those freaks get, all because they have some sort of' 'extraordinary powers'."

Ashley was finding it harder and harder to keep up her act of nonchalance the more she was hearing. "Come on, it can't be that bad." She said, "I mean, if this Peter were really trying to cheat, wouldn't it be obvious? Deviants with telepathic powers like that can only influence people up to a certain distance. Don't you think Commander Richardson would be getting suspicious that Peter was the only cadet in the class who was getting perfect grades without doing all of the work? Deviants aren't all powerful, of course."

"You clearly don't know any Deviants," said Theresa, in a manner which clearly showed she believed Ashley was speaking from ignorance, and needed to be further educated in the ways of the world. "Deviants are dangerous, and should be treated with suspicion. I wouldn't trust their claims about how powerful they think they are. They're all troublemakers, and if Starfleet had any proper idea of how to deal with them, they would make more of an effort to keep them in line."

Ashley felt a thrill of ice shoot through her. She closed her hands around her drink to keep them from shaking. "So, what would you have them do? You think we should round them up and keep them in camps like was done during the aftermath of World War III?"

"No, even that is a little extreme." said Theresa, "But, there should be some more oversight, more regulation. The Deviants shouldn't be allowed to regulate themselves. Starfleet should have access to all of their records, so that they know who the most dangerous of the Deviants are. Deviants who are to powerful have no place in Starfleet. If we're not careful, they could take advantage of us regular humans and control the world again."

It was at this moment that Jim returned with the drinks which he ordered. "Hey, Theresa, got your order." He noticed the newcomer, and said, "Oh, look, we got another guest. I hope that I shouldn't be worried."

"Oh, Jim, don't worry." said Theresa, smiling up at Jim as she accepted the drink. "Adam is a friend. We were just talking about Deviants."

"Hey, great. Ashley should have a lot to say about that, won't you?" He looked over at Ashley, clearly expecting to see her gray eyes shining with excitement which they always did when she got a chance to talk about her powers. However, what he saw filled him with concern. "Ash, are you all right?"

Jim's voice jolted her back to reality. The background music of the bar once more flooded her ears, along with the buzz of conversation all around her. She also saw the sudden, disbelieving looks that Theresa and Adam were now casting in her direction.

She looked down and saw that the drink in her hand was frozen, the ice congealing around the glass itself, and spreading out in a thin layer across the table in front of her. Immediately, her subconscious control broke, and the glass shattered, sending the liquid in her glass splattering all over the table in frozen chunks.

At that exact moment, Adam jumped out of his chairs, and took several steps back, his expressions terrified. "You didn't tell me that I was sitting next to one of those freaks." He said, looking at Theresa accusingly.

"Don't look at me, I didn't know." said Theresa, who appeared to be just as repulsed as Adam. "Jim, you're actually friends with one of those mutants?"

The disturbance had drawn the attention of some of the nearby tables, their patrons turning to look at them, with varying degrees of confusion and curiosity. The attention was to much for Ashley. Tears streaming down her face, she bolted for the door of the bar.

"Hey, Ashley, wait." Jim called out. He didn't even bother to respond to Theresa when she called after him. He hurried after Ashley, who had managed to duck her way through the crowd, vanishing out the door. Jim followed, but by the time he got outside, she was gone. He looked both up and down the street, but she had already vanished.

He was just about to try and go after her, when he felt Theresa grab his arm. "Jim, what's going on? Why did you run after her?"

Jim beamed her a look of disgust and pulled his arm from her grasp. "What did you say?" He demanded angrily. "Ashley doesn't just run out of a bar in tears without a damn good reason."

Theresa appeared taken aback and confused, as though she had no idea what Jim was talking about, or why he was suddenly so upset. "What do you mean? I said nothing, but what was true. I didn't think she would take it so personally. But, that's so typical of people like her."

"People like her?" Jim asked, in disbelief that Theresa could so casually dismiss it.

"Yeah, Jim. Deviants. They act so high and mighty with their 'enhanced' abilities. They think they're better than us lowly humans, and they don't like anyone who doesn't think the same."

Jim could hardly believe what he was hearing. He was horrified at the perfect conviction with which Theresa was speaking, as though such sentiments were common knowledge. "Theresa, how can you even say that? Ashley is a person, just like you. The fact that she's a Deviant doesn't mean anything."

"That's what they want you to think, Jim. Don't you see? The Deviants are unnatural, dangerous. You saw what Ashley did in there, without even being aware of it. Can't you think how much damage she or even another Deviant like her could do if they ever set their minds to it."

Jim growled angrily. Clearly, Theresa was not going to listen to reason, which left him with only one option. "Good night, Theresa." He said, with a cold finality, as he turned and walked away.

"Jim, where are you going?"

"I'm going to find Ashley. Hopefully, I can repair some of the damage that you and your friend caused."

"Jim, you can't seriously be defending her."

Jim turned back to her, his voice angry. "Yes, I can. She's my friend, and you hurt her."

"And you're just going to walk out on me because of this?"

"You know what? Yes, I am. You know, Theresa, you really did hold a certain attraction for me. Now I see that whatever your assets might be, what's hiding underneath is ugly. I would hate to get mixed up with it."

He didn't even wait for her to respond, but once more turned and stalked away.

* * *

Jim had known that Ashley would probably retreat back to the apartment that she shared with his sister. He was pretty certain that Ashley would have wanted to get away to a place where she knew where she wasn't going to be bothered.

He stood outside the door for a moment, uncertain how to proceed. He didn't know if she would want to be alone, or if she would even want to speak to him again. After all, it was his date that had bad-mouthed her. He had had no idea that Theresa had harbored such thoughts. However, he also couldn't completely banish his own guilt. He felt like he should have at least suspected something.

He finally managed to work up the nerve to knock, and only a few seconds later, Ashley opened it. That was a step in the right direction, but her eyes were red and puffy from crying. Jim felt his own sense of guilt suddenly increasing. However, when she saw him, she smiled a little. "Hi."

"Hi." said Jim, "Can I come in? Or if you'd rather be alone, that's fine, too. I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

"I'm not really, all right, that is, but you can come in. I would... Kind of like having someone to talk to right now. "

As they she opened the door a little wider, and Jim entered the apartment. He noticed that there was a paused image on the screen which resembled an old earth video game. "Stress relief?" He asked, as he pointed at the image.

"Yeah, it gives me something to do with my hands. Sometimes beating the living daylights out of some pixilated opponents makes me feel better about my state of being."

Jim nodded, still not entirely certain what his next words should be. He sat down on the couch, as did Ashley. "Um, yeah, about that. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."

Ashley's eyebrows kitted together quizzically. "What do you mean? You didn't do anything."

"Yeah, I did nothing. Besides letting my supposed date and a stranger emotionally traumatize you in a public place, I didn't do anything."

"Jim, I don't blame you for what happened, okay? I get the feeling that you wouldn't have been with Theresa in the first place if you had known what she really thought about Deviants."

"No, I didn't. I actually broke up with her before I came here."

"Can't say I'm sorry about that. I'm sure that you could do better."

It wasn't the best attempt at a joke, but it was a relief to see that she was even trying. "I'm just sorry that you had to go through something like that."

Ashley sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest. "I'll be fine, in awhile. Honestly, it's not the first time this has happened. I imagine I'll get over it in about the same amount of time."

Jim stared at her in mute disbelief. "This has happened before?"

"Yeah, not a lot, but I've encountered some pretty misguided people in my time. Quite honestly, what I heard tonight was mild compared to some of the things I've heard people call Deviants."

"You can't honestly tell me that you believe what they say?"

"No, of course not. I'm not ashamed of what I am. I like having my powers. It doesn't make it any easier hearing insults from people who refuse to understand."

Hearing her words, Jim was reminded of all the verbal abuse he had received at the hands of his uncle while growing up. He had never allowed himself to believe the words like "useless", "lazy", "stupid" which he had heard continuously. But, Ashley was right. Those words had still hurt more than he had cared to admit.

"Yeah, I think I can understand that." He said, after a moment. "You still shouldn't have had to hear that, though. You should have, I don't know, singed then up a bit, just to get them to shut up."

"And what would that have done except to confirm their opinions even more?" She shook her heard. "I can't use my powers like that, Jim. At least, that's what my father taught me."

"I seem to remember you hosing down a bunch of Starfleet cadets who would have liked to rearrange my face when we first met."

"That was different, Jim. You were the one who walked into that because of your bottomless stupidity. I was just trying to get them off of you. This... this wouldn't have been any better even if I had used my powers."

"And your drink turning into a Popsicle? You usually have better control than that."

Ashley looked down at her hands, smiling ironically. "I do, thought most of the time, not even my stronger emotions can make me use ice. When it sneaks up on me like that, I'm not always aware when I'm doing it."

Jim could see that Ashley was trying to put a brave face on what she had been through. However, it wasn't fooling him. She had been hurt quite badly. She might not have blamed it on him, but he still didn't like what his role in it had been.

Jim had never really had any close friends. Besides Danielle, he had been pretty closed off most of his life. Ashley had been the first true friend he had found, and she had stood by him from the first. He felt that he owed it to her do to the same.

He reached over and took one of her hands. "You're a fantastic person, Ashley. Anyone who only sees the Deviant side of you are the people who will really be missing out in the end."

Ashley looked up at Jim, and for the first time since he had come in, her smile actually reached her eyes. "You're a good friend, Jim." She gave her hand a squeeze. "I think I'm pretty fortunate to have met you."

Jim smiled back. "I'll always be here, Ashley. It seems to be the least I can do." He glanced over at the screen and the paused game. "So, I don't suppose that this game you're playing happens to have a co-op mode?"

Ashley's smile increased, her earlier dark mood starting to dissipate. "It does, actually. Just be warned, though, I'm not going to go easy on you."

"You won't have to. I fully intend to win every match."

Ashley grabbed one of the controllers and threw it at him. "Challenge accepted, Kirk. Let's see if your game-play is as good as your boasting."

In the med bay of the _Enterprise_ , Ashley found herself thinking back to that moment with a tired smile. It couldn't be denied that she and Jim had always gotten into trouble, though whether through accident or their own bottomless stupidity always seemed to depend on the situation. This latest scheme to get them on the flag-ship of the fleet was only the latest in a long line of such events. Honestly, Ashley thought that this time it was stupidity which had landed them here.

Even so, over the years, Jim had been a person she always knew she could rely on and trust. No matter how the next few hours ended up, even if she and Jim got cashiered out of Starfleet, there would be some comfort that they would at least be doing it together. Granted, that wasn't much of a comfort, but regarding the situation which they were in, she supposed that she should take all of the comfort that she could.


	11. Acceptance

Acceptance:

The med-bay of the _Enterprise_ was humming with activity. In the face of an unexpected rescue mission, crew members, both new and old had needed to scramble to make sure everything was ready for a major influx of wounded.

Technically, Danielle was part of the counseling staff aboard the Enterprise. However, as her services in that particular area were not needed just yet, she was helping where she could in getting Sick Bay ready for any causalities they would encounter when they reached Vulcan.

Jim was currently sleeping off the last remnants of the serum which Bones had given him, while Ashley was simply to exhausted to even think about moving. No one seemed to question their sudden appearance in Sick Bay or why they were there. In light of a possible disaster on Vulcan, two sick crew members didn't seem to warrant that much attention from the med staff.

Leonard had been pulled away almost as soon as they had arrived, leaving Danielle more or less to keep an eye on Jim and Ashley until he could join her again. "So, how are our guests doin'?" he asked.

"Resting quietly so far, if not exactly comfortably."

"They'll thank us for it, later, if we don't get thrown out of Starfleet first." He shook his head. "I still don't know why I let you talk me into this."

"Me? I didn't say a thing."

"You didn't need to say anything, sweetheart. You know as well as I do you plead most eloquently when you say nothing."

Danielle rolled her eyes. "That's perfectly false, and you know it, Leonard. You would have done the same thing for Jim if I hadn't been here."

"The most painful thing about that statement is that it's true." He looked over at Jim and Ashley. "Hopefully, we can keep them quiet till this whole mess blows over, than we can figure where to go from there."

Danielle nodded. She honestly didn't have a plan beyond this point either. Rashness had always been Jim's particular gift in that he was able to come up with some way to carry it through. For Danielle, whenever she did something in the the heat of the moment, it fizzled out before she could really do anything constructive or useful with the event.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Were you able to get in touch with Joanna before we left?"

Leonard's face seemed to tighten even more when Danielle mentioned his daughter. "Yeah, at least, I tried. I got her on the comm to tell her I would have to postpone our plans this weekend because of this emergency. She was all right with it, until Margaret came in."

Danielle realized why Leonard was suddenly so tense. There were few people who could inspire such feelings of disgust in her, and Margaret was one of them. "I can guess that she wasn't entirely supportive."

"I won't repeat what she said. It would just put both of us in a worse mood than we already are. She did accuse me of putting Starfleet ahead of my daughter, again. She severed the connection between us before Joanna could say anything."

The underlying bitterness in Leonard's tone was impossible for her to miss. Realizing that they were still surrounded by the press of the people in Sick Bay, she took Leonard by the hand and led him off into a side alcove. "Leonard, are you all right?"

Leonard took a deep breath, trying to keep control of himself. "I'm not really. Joanna's growing up, and I barely get enough time with her as it is without having her mother breathing down out neck half the time. She's been interfering, more than she used to. I have no idea why."

"I think it's time that you try to fight Margaret for more custody." said Danielle, after a moment. "I know that you never wanted to make Joanna a tool in your fight with her, but honestly, if you're starting to get worried, you have to start getting answers."

Leonard took a deep breath, and passed a hand over his face. "Maybe you're right, and I'll think about it. But, it's not going to help us you here." He took her hand and gave her a squeeze. "I'm glad you're here though. I wouldn't feel very confidant otherwise."

"I'll always be here, Leonard. I promise you that." said Danielle, giving him a reassuring smile.

"Yeah, I know." said Leonard, giving her the best thing to a reassuring smile that he could.

Sometimes, even Leonard could be a little shocked that Danielle Kirk of all people had fallen in love with him. Considering the circumstances under which they had met (where he had been half drunk and more argumentative than usual), he wouldn't have blamed her if she decided to never speak to him again.

But then Danielle had found out about Joanna. He hadn't told them about his daughter. When he had met them, he had lost practically everything he had built his life around, and losing the only two friends which he had made wasn't something he wanted to risk. So, he hadn't told the two of them, all while telling himself that he would eventually get around to doing it. With that kind of thinking, of course, he never did.

Of course, Danielle _did_ find out, when she had encountered them in one of the parks of San Francisco during one afternoon. Needless to say, it had been awkward for them both. Luckily, Joanna had been there to break the silence, or they might have been staring at each for the rest of the afternoon, trying to come up with something intelligent to say.

"Who's this, dad?" She had asked, once she had caught sight of Danielle. "Is she one of the people you go to the Academy with?"

Leonard glanced back at Danielle, feeling more than a little foolish that it had come to this. "Oh, uh, yes, she is. Joanna, this is Danielle Kirk."

"It's a pleasure to meet you." said Joanna, "Dad's told me so much about you."

For a few seconds, Danielle was still clear shocked at Leonard's revelation. However, she finally managed to smile and said, "Well, I'm glad to hear that. I hope that all of the reports have been good at least."

"Oh, he likes you a lot." said Joanna, "I think he thinks that your brother Jim is a pain in the a-"

"Uh, language, Jo." said Leonard. His tone was stern, but even he couldn't keep a slight smile from his face.

Joanna rolled her eyes, and looked back at her father in exasperation. "Oh, come on, dad, your the one who said it."

"And you should know by now that I am the worst role model to look up, so don't go quoting me. Danielle will start thinking that I haven't raised you right."

He saw Danielle's smile grow a little wider at this exchange and he allowed himself to feel something like hope that she would forgive him for keeping something like from her. "Look, uh, sweetheart, I need to speak with Danielle about something. Stay within ear shot all right."

Joanna nodded, and went rushing off. Once they were alone, Danielle looked over at Leonard with a slightly raised eyebrow and said, with a hint of smile. "So, I think that I know the real reason you needed to cancel our usual studying time."

Despite her lightness of temper, Leonard still felt more than a little embarrassed. Here he had been trying to avoid all the awkward questions that would result from Danielle finding out he had a daughter, and he had more or less botched the entire thing. "I know I probably should have told you about Joanna, and I would have, at some point. It's still really complicated between me and Margaret. This is the first time that I've seen Joanna in almost six months, and I couldn't-"

"Leonard, please, would you be quiet for just one second so I can get a word in edgewise?"

Leonard realized that he was rambling, which probably wasn't helping his case at all. So, he shut up and allowed her to start talking. He probably should have done that to begin with. "First of all, I'm not blaming you. To tell the truth, I had no idea that you would be so good at keeping secrets."

Leonard opened his mouth to object, than realized that Danielle was trying very hard to hold back a smile. "Oh, I get it, you're teasing me."

"Of course, I am, Leonard. You take yourself too seriously. It's something that you really need to work on."

"Thank you for that bit of advice." said Leonard, "Before you ask, I haven't told Jim yet. I just couldn't drag you into all drama between me and Margaret. I'm afraid that there's still a lot of bitterness. I can't see us getting on rosy terms anytime soon."

Danielle was silent for a moment, as she tried to process this. "I ad an idea when I first met you that your divorce was a hard one."

"Well, I wasn't exactly subtle about it." Leonard admitted, "You haven't mentioned it since, so I assumed that you had just forgot it, like Jim."

"Oh, believe me, I didn't forget. Why else do you think I was so patient with you during your more acerbic moments? Now, that I've met you daughter, I think I'm filling in a few more of the blanks. I can understand why you didn't want tell us, Leonard, but I wish that you had sooner, drama or not. This isn't something you should have had to face on your own."

"I've been on my own since this whole thing started." Leonard said, unable to keep a trace of bitterness from his tone. "Margaret comes from a family of lawyers; they knew exactly what to say in order to make sure the judge saw things their way. They also made sure to saddle me with the greenest advocate they could possibly find who would screw up my entire case. She wound up with full custody. This is the first that I've actually seen Joanna since I since I enrolled in the Academy."

Danielle stopped, turning to stare at Leonard in shock. "You haven't seen your own daughter in six months?"

"I had to prove to Margaret I was 'stable', to use her words before she would even think of letting Joanna come near me." He sighed deeply, running his hands through his hair. "I don't know. Maybe in some ways, she was right. I'll admit that I wasn't in the greatest frame of mind when I ran into you two at the Shipyard that day. Honestly, it wasn't just the divorce. There were a lot of other issues."

He couldn't bring himself to look at her as he was speaking. He had learned early on in his friendship with Danielle that she had an uncanny knack for reading people. She was the most understanding person he had ever met, and that was saying quite a lot. It made him remember how nice it was to have someone to confide in.

It also scared the hell out of him. He hadn't trusted anyone so deeply since the death of his father, and he knew only to well how that had turned out. In fact, he was determined that Danielle would never find out about that. He didn't know just how far her understanding would go.

However, it didn't seem as though Danielle wanted to press him on what those "issues" might have been. Instead, she seemed to deliberately point the conversation back to more neutral territory. "Well, regardless of the reason why, I'm glad that you're able to see her now. I hope that she'll be around more regularly now that you're at the Academy."

At the mention of this, Leonard actually found himself smiling. "Yeah, starting this month, I should get two weekends with her. It's no nearly enough, but I'll gladly take it."

Leonard was suddenly startled by the thud of Joanna falling out of the lower branches of a tree that was a few feet away. Instantly, certain that she had broken her neck and would be paralyzed, he sped up his pace to go to her side. However, Joanna was immediately up on her feet, not just laughing, but already scrambling up the tree once more.

Leonard wasn't entirely able to banish his paranoia, even if he had gone a little to far with his worry. "Sweetheart, be careful. I don't want to have to set your leg if your fall out of that tree."

Joanna, who was a good six feet off the ground by this time, looked down at him with an expression of exasperation. Clearly, this wasn't the first time that she had had to put up with her father's parental concern. "Dad, I know what I'm doing, all right? I'm not going to fall."

Danielle was watching this entire exchange with a smile. "I'm surprised that you're not trying to tie her to the ground. I can only imagine how hard it must be for you of all people to have a daughter who's so active."

"Believe me, every time she starts climbing up a tree or comes sliding down the bannister, I feel like I could have a heart attack. But, she's always been so vibrant, so full of life. It would be wrong for me to try and make her anything less than what she is."

He didn't try to hide the fact that he was unashamedly proud of Joanna. She had been a centering force in his life ever since the death of his father. Had it not been for her, instead of taking the risk to join Starfleet, he might very well have done something much worse to himself.

"Honestly, I'm glad that you had to cancel studying this afternoon. I might never have found out about Joanna otherwise."

"I would have told you." said Leonard, looking slightly embarrassed. "I mean, I was waiting for the right time, so... yeah, you're right. You may have noticed, I'm not always comfortable with the personal stuff."

"Of course, I knew _that_ the moment I met you. I've actually been using you as a case study in a paper I'm working on." Leonard looked at her in open-mouthed astonishment, and Danielle was laughing again. "Leonard, calm down, I'm kidding."

"Right, hilarious. You psychologists have the weirdest sense of humor."

"Anyway, now that I do know about her, I hope that you won't feel a need to hide her anymore." She sobered for a moment, and said, in a serious tone of voice. "The truth is, Leonard, if you were worried about being judged, that's probably the last thing you needed to be concerned about. Where Jim and I have come from, we've seen a whole lot worse."

Leonard looked first at Danielle, then up at Joanna, who had apparently climbed as high as she wanted that day, and was now coming back in their direction. "I was starting to feel a little bad about keepin' this from you and Jim. You two have been the first real friends I've had in a long time, despite the fact that Jim can sometimes drive me up the wall with all his shenanigans."

"Now, you know how I felt my entire life." said Danielle, as she put her hand on his arm. "But, you're right. We are your friends. I don't want to ever doubt that."

Leonard glanced down at her hand, and a little slowly, he put his own hand over hers'. There was a slight spark as their skin touched, a spark that didn't go unnoticed by either of them. They didn't realize just how close they had come to each other in the course of the conversation. It was an intimate moment; it had been a long time since either of them had met someone who seemed to understand what they had gone through.

However, there was an inherent danger in following this course. He was a doctor. She was a psychologist. They both knew just how fragile the human heart could be. Leonard almost as soon as he felt even that smallest thread of connection, immediately turned away from it. He didn't think that he wanted to go through all that again, not when he was just starting to gain some semblance of order in his life.

He cleared his throat and dropped Danielle's hand. "I'm glad that you were... understanding. I just hope that Jim is as forgiving as you are when he finds out."

Danielle's expression faltered only slightly at the loss of contact. However, she didn't comment on it. Instead, she smiled at him, a smile which he would have liked to say didn't warm him, but even that was lying to himself. "Jim is so much of a child himself at times, he shouldn't have any problem getting along with Joanna."

By this time, Joanna had come scampering back up to them. "I think that I've probably already intruded on your afternoon longer then I needed to." said Danielle, "I should probably let you two go back to your time together."

She looked at Joanna. "It was wonderful to meet you, Joanna. Enjoy the rest of your stay here in San Francisco, all right?"

"I will, I promise you." said Joanna, eagerly.

"I'll see you soon then, Leonard." she said, looking back at him.

"Yeah, of course. Next time, I'll actually try telling the truth."

"Good, I would hate for Joanna to pick up any _more_ bad habits from you. She's already seemed to have inherited your colorful way of expressing herself. " Danielle's smile resembling a smirk, and Leonard got another confirmation that there might have been more than a little of Jim's mischievousness in Danielle (and why he found it slight endearing with her, while it could oftentimes drive him to distraction in Jim, he refused to contemplate).

Joanna frowned slightly in confusion as Danielle walked away. "What did she mean by that, dad?"

"Nothing sweetheart." said Leonard, avoiding the question, as he felt any answer he could give would only lead to more he wasn't prepared to face.

"I like her, dad." said Joanna, "Are we going to see her again?"

At this, Leonard allowed himself a genuine smile. Yes, sweetheart. I can pretty much guarantee that."

That first meeting between Joanna and Danielle had taken place over two-and-a-half year before. It had just grown from there. Jim had quickly warmed to Joanna, and his daughter had soon found herself firmly entrenched in what had become a bizarrely functional living arrangement. Danielle had quickly taken Joanna into her very heart, and it was probably that reason more than anything else which had helped him to put aside his own reluctance to finally open up to share his life with someone else.

Truth be told, the only thing which Leonard honestly regretted looking back over he events was that he hadn't done it sooner.

Now, the recent difficulties which he had been having with Margaret were threatening to disrupt that idyll. For some reason, his ex-wife had stepped up her efforts to try and keep Leonard from seeing Joanna on a regular basis. Leonard had a troubling suspicion that, when all of this trouble with Vulcan, he was going to have to face that again. However, this time, he was certain that it would be different.

He found himself looking over at Danielle across the med bay, who was currently seeing to a recovering Ashley. Oh yes, falling in love with on Kirk and becoming best friends with another had more or less guaranteed that his life would ever be anything but peaceful. However, he now knew that he would always have someone to fight for him, regardless of the challenge he was faced with. He wouldn't have had it any other way.


	12. Echoes of Nightmares

Echoes of Nightmares:

The _Enterprise_ was underway to Vulcan. Not many of the crew understood the exact nature of their mission, save that it had to do with a distress call from Vulcan. In the med-bay, that meant preparing for causalities and the wounded. Danielle and Leonard, who had changed into their uniforms, were helping in any way they could. However, once their uninvited patients started to recover, Danielle had to see to them.

Jim was groggily coming out from the sedative, but he was still to out of it make any sort of disturbance. Danielle was grateful for that. She and Leonard were probably already in a world of trouble for what they had done, if they were ever found out.

Ashley, on the other hand, was curled up on one of the beds. Though she endured her own trial of physical suffering without the need of a sedative, she was far from happy about it.

"Am I supposed to be so thirsty?" She asked, after drowning her third glass of water in thirty minutes.

"Don't worry. That's just a temporary side effect."

"It seems that everything that's going on today is a 'temporary side effect'." grumbled Ashley, as she sat up stiffly. "What did you inject me with? What sort of disease has symptoms which mimics those of a panic attack?"

"You really want to know?" Ashley opened her mouth, before shutting it again. "That's what I thought."

At that very moment, the screens around sick bay beeped with the alarm of an incoming ship-wide transmission. A second later, an overly youthful, but incredibly enthusiastic face of a human male appeared.

"Who's that?" Ashley asked.

"Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov, the Associate Helmsman and Conn Officer."

"He looks like he's young enough to still be in grade school."

"17, actually. Genius level IQ, graduated top of his class from the Russian Star Academy. He's actually fairly confidant for his age, without much of the insecurity which can plague prodigies of his age. The real problem might be that he needs to learn when his opinion is wanted and how much of it he should give."

Ashley gave her a funny look. "How do you know all of that? Have you been stalking him?"

"No, I needed to do a psych eval on him. I needed to do them for all the bridge crew."

Ashley shook her head. "I do wonder about you sometimes."

Chekov began to speak, his voice heavily inflected with a Russian accent. "Your attention, plees: at 2200 hours, telemetry detected an anomaly in the neutral zone. What appeared to be a lightening storm in space."

"Huh, weird." said Ashley, "The Neutral Zone isn't known for it's lightening storms, if I'm remembering my spatial phenomena class from first year academy right." She looked over at Danielle, but was struck by the expression on her face. "Uh, Danielle, you okay?"

Danielle's reaction to Chekov's words was strange. She didn't know herself, at first, why something seemed off about the words "a lightening storm in space" and why such a storm inside the Neutral Zone immediately put her on edge. It stirred something deep inside her memory, a dark memory that she rarely allowed herself to revisit.

Danielle knew the value of paying attention to such small pricks of memory. Somehow, it seemed as though remembering something very specific wasn't jut important, but it could be a matter of life and death. She forced herself to dig deeper into that dark memory, despite every coping mechanism she had used in her life. A lightening storm in space, in the Neutral Zone; where had she heard that before? What made it so similar to what was happening in the present moment?

In an instant, it came to her. The memory was the worst day of her life, because it was the day that her father had died. However, every detail of that day was ingrained on her memory, because it was also the day when she had been given one of her greatest gifts in the form of her brother.

With this sudden realization, she rushed over to one of the computer banks. The information for the mission was in the process of being downloaded to all of the various departments of the ship.

All the while, Chekov continued. "Soon after, Starfleet received a distress signal from the Vulcan High Council that their planet was experiencing seismic activity. We then lost contact with Vulcan entirely."

The medical staff around her had already started to set up a triage area, in anticipation of casualties, but Danielle didn't even bother to look at the medical flies. She went straight in the astrometric readings of this so-called lightening storm in space. What she saw only confirmed it in her mind. The readings were exactly the same as those which had been recorded that day 25 years ago.

Over the years, Danielle had studied every detail that she could of the Kelvin disaster. She had wanted to know what it was that had killed her father. Every detail was now seared onto her memory, almost as if she had been there to experience it, and not just through the eyes of a frightened little girl.

As the full doom of the situation began to dawn on her, Chekov continued up on the screens, oblivious as anyone else on the ship of the impending disaster that they were about to fly into. "Our mission is to assess the condition of Vulcan and assist in evacuations if necessary."

Ashley had no idea what was going through Danielle's mind, only that her friend looked more and more horrified by the situation, though Chekov's calm message seemed to imply that there was nothing overtly dangerous about their current situation beyond a simple rescue mission. "Danni, what is going on? You look like you've just seen a ghost."

Danielle didn't answer, just continued to stare at the read out in shock. "We can't do this." She breathed.

"What was that?" asked Ashley, who really hadn't heard those last words, or would have understood them even if she had.

Chekov, having delivered his message to the crew concisely, concluded his message. "We should arriving at Vulcan withing two minutes. Thank you for your time."

The very instant that Chekov's face vanished from the screen, Jim suddenly sat bolt upright on the bio-bed. His eyes were wide, but strangely disjointed at the same time, as he fought off the remainder of the sedative. "Lightening storm!" He managed to gasp out.

Leonard, who had been consulting with the other senior medical staff and hadn't seen Danielle's troubled reaction to the transmission, did see Jim finally coming out of the sedative and stepped over to him. "Oh, good, Jim, you're awake. How ya feel?"

Jim had been groggy when Chekov's message had sounded across the screens, but he had still heard the same phrase which had first alerted Danielle to the fact that something was very wrong. He would have liked very much to try and tell someone this. unfortunately, he found himself moaning in pain, as he began to realize that his hands felt like they were exploding.

Almost immediately, Leonard looked at his hands, and his face showed horrified shock. "Good god, man!"

"What?" Jim's voice caused Danielle to turn around just as her brother lifted his hands up to his face, only to see that they had swollen to cartoonishly large proportions. "What the hell is this?"

"A reaction to the vaccine, damn it." cried Leonard, as he rushed away to grab a med-kit.

However, Jim's legs were actually working now, so he forced himself to ignore the pain in his hands. Jim heaved himself off the bio-bed and stumbled over to the counsel where Danielle was standing. Ordinarily, Danielle would have admonished Jim and told him to rest. But this time, she was as distracted as he was.

Ashley was stuck in the middle, and really had no idea either what was going on between anyone. She knew even less how to react when Jim and Danielle looked at each other, and Danielle said, "Jim, a lightening storm in space."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Jim replied, as he frantically replayed Chekov's message, trying to find the moment which had alerted him and Danielle.

Meanwhile, McCoy had rushed over and and was scanning Jim with a sensor. Jim hardly noticed as he and Danielle listened intently to Chekov's message again. "Telemetry detected an anomaly in the Neutral Zone. What appeared to be a lightening storm in space."

Jim stopped the transmission and looked over at his sister expectantly. "I checked that telemetry, Jim. The anomaly is a match."

"A match to what?" Ashley asked, "What are you two talking about?"

Neither Jim or Danielle answered, simply turning and running out of sick bay as a quickly as they could. "Jim, Danielle, wait!" McCoy shouted. "Damn that woman is as stubborn as Jim sometimes." He muttered.

"I suppose we'd better go after them before they both get into trouble." said Ashley.

"You'll be getting no argument from me." said McCoy, as they ran out after them.

Danielle and Jim were dashing head-long down the hallway. "We have to get to the bridge." said Danielle, "We have to warn Captain Pike."

"Pike won't believe us without proof." said Jim, as he hurried over to a nearby console.

"And where are we going to get that?"

"Lieutenant Uhura, is she on-board?"

"Uhura? I think she would be." Knowing Uhura, if she hadn't initially been assigned to the _Enterprise_ , she would have convinced Spock to change the assignment. She was just that persuasive. "How can she help us?"

"Just trust me, Danni." said Jim.

At this point, Leonard and Ashley had caught up with them. Leonard was still trying to scan Jim, a task that was none to easy task given the fact that Jim wasn't holding still. "Jim, I'm not kidding, you gotta keep your heart-rate down."

Jim still wasn't listening to him, and said urgently into the terminal. "Computer, locate Crewman Uhura."

"I haven't seen a reaction this severe since med school." said McCoy, as he looked desperately through his med-kit for something to counter the effects of the vaccine he had given Jim.

"Lieutenant Uhura is at Signals Monitoring Station Twelve, Deck 4." said the voice from the computer.

"I now where that is." said Danielle, "This way."

"Danielle, would you stop enabling Jim and actually help me?"

"I will as soon as we're not dealing with a potential catastrophe." said Danielle, "At this point, I agree with Jim."

"She's right, Bones." said Jim, as he grabbed Leonard by the face. "We're flying into a trap."

With that, the two raced off again, with Leonard on their trail.

They eventually managed to locate Uhura, lost in the sea of humanity that was the underbelly of any massive starship. Jim raced up to Uhura, wasting no time on pleasantries or clever greetings. "Uhura, Uhura."

Needless to say, Uhura hadn't been expecting to see Jim Kirk, nor was she all that thrilled to see him. Her initial shock at seeing him was quickly replaced by a scowl of anger as she addressed Jim with barely concealed dislike. "Kirk, what are you doing here?"

Jim didn't even acknowledge her anger or answer he questioned directly. "The transmission from the Klingon prison planet, what was..." Jim asked, desperately.

However, Uhura immediately cut him off when she saw the inflated monstrosities which were now Jim's hands. "Oh my god, what's wrong with your hands?"

Leonard and Ashley had arrived by this point, and Leonard had already started scanning Jim. "It-it-it... look, who is responsible for the Klingon attack? Was the ship Romul..."

Jim's desperate attempts to get his message across were further impeded when his words became suddenly garbled and almost unintelligible. Uhura, apparently losing patience with Jim, turned to Danielle. "Danielle, please tell me Jim didn't drag you into doing something stupid."

"He didn't, Uhura. Listen to us, this is serious."

"Than aren't you asking the questions, when your brother clearly can't talk?"

"Because I have no idea what he's trying to ask, but if you don't try Uhura, your life, and the lives of everyone on this ship could be in danger."

Uhura wasn't Jim's biggest fan, but she respected Danielle and knew that she wouldn't have started on something like this unless there was a good reason albeit with some reluctance, she did turn back to Jim. "All right, Kirk, was the ship what?"

Jim was still trying to talk around the unresponsive slab of red meat which had become his tongue. "What's happening to my mouth?" He demanded of Leonard, though the question was barely audible.

"You got numb tongue?" Leonard asked.

"Numb tongue?" repeated Jim in disbelief.

"I can fix that."

Leonard rushed off to the side, while Jim turned back to Uhura, who was growing increasingly impatient. "Was the ship what?"

"Romulan?" asked Jim, though it was incredibly difficult to make out.

"What?" said Uhura, despite herself, something was telling her to listen harder.

"Romulan." Jim tried again, trying to put all his powers of enunciation into that one word.

And it worked. Uhura's eyes flashed with understanding, and she said, "Romulan"

Jim latched onto it. "Yeah."

"Yes." said Uhura.

"Yes!" Jim repeated, the final confirmation he needed.

And at that moment, Leonard jammed yet another hypo-spray into his neck. The sharp jolt of pain cured Jim of his numb tongue, but did nothing to alleviate his growing annoyance at the doctor for sticking him with sharp objects. "Dammit."

"Uhura, follow us. We're going to need you." said Danielle, as she and Jim once more set off at a dead run for the turbolifts.

"Wait, where are you going?" Uhura called out, as she rushed after them, along with Leonard and Ashley.

The turbolift seemed to move so slowly for both Jim and Danielle. They didn't even both to see if their companions had followed them. They were to caught up in trying to get to the bridge as quickly as possible. Everyone on the bridge was completely surprised when the lift door suddenly opened, and Danielle and Jim Kirk burst onto the bridge. However, surprise quickly turned to horror and anger when Captain Pike and Spock recognized the intruders.

The two Kirks completely ignored these reactions and got right to the point, at least the important point as they saw it. "Captain Pike, sir, we have to stop the ship." said Jim.

"The energy surge near Vulcan isn't a lightening storm." said Danielle, at almost the exact same time.

"Mr. Kirk," Pike demanded, "How the hell did you get on board the Enterprise?" He turned to look at Danielle. "Dr. Kirk, do you have any explanation for this?" He then saw Ashley emerging from the turbo-lift right after them, and had to suppress the urge to groan. "Ashley what _you_ doing here? You were assigned to the _Farragut_."

"I really don't know anymore. Believe me, I almost wish I was there now."

"This is no time for sass, Cadet Pike. You are in deep trouble."

By this time, both Uhura and Leonard had arrived on the bridge, and Leonard was trying to salvage what he could from the debacle. "Sir, this man is under the influence of a severe reaction to a vaccine. He is delusional and I take full responsibility for-"

"McCoy, will you be quiet?" Danielle barked, "You're not helping."

"Not helpi-! I'm trying to help, Danielle, by fixing this mess which _you_ got us into. You were the one who insisted on 'helping' your brother."

Jim did his best to ignore his sister bickering with her boyfriend and focused all of his attention on Pike. "Sir, Vulcan isn't experiencing a natural disaster, it's being attacked, by Romulans."

A moment of stunned silence followed this announcement, an announcement that seemed utterly ludicrous, and yet was delivered with such conviction that nearly everyone on the bridge couldn't help but look first at each other, and then at their captain questioningly.

However, Pike seemed to have already made up his mind that he wouldn't be listening to anymore Kirks. "Cadet Kirk, I think you've had enough attention for one day." He turned a sharp gaze to Leonard and Danielle. "Dr. McCoy, Dr. Kirk, return to the medical bay. We'll have words later."

"Yes, sir." said Leonard, who seemed properly rebuked. He grabbed Danielle by the arm and tried to usher her out, but she refused to budge.

"Dr. Kirk, I gave you a direct order to leave the bridge." said Pike, who was quickly losing patience.

"Sir, you have to listen-"

"No, I don't have to listen at all."

"With all due respect, I know you may not want to listen to me or my brother, but you've got to."

This defiance caused a ripple of shock to move through the entire bridge crew. Even Captain Pike seemed a bit taken aback by Danielle's outburst. It was not in her nature to question authority. The hardness in his expression seemed to soften ever so softly, replaced by thoughtfulness.

Spock, however, still seemed to be needing convincing, as he now entered the conflict. He came over to the small cluster of people and said, "As you know, Mr. Kirk is not cleared to be aboard this vessel, by Starfleet..."

Jim, annoyed to the extreme that he had to go through this _again_ , began overlapping with what Spock was saying. "Yeah, I get it, you're a great arguer..."

"Regulations, that makes him a stowaway..."

"I'd love to do it again with you, too..."

"I can remove this cadet..."

"Try it!" snapped Jim.

"This cadet from the bridge, sir."

"I'm trying to save the bridge."

Danielle had finally heard enough. "Will you two stop your infantile arguing and pay attention to what's truly important?"

Both Jim and Spock stopped arguing and stared at Danielle. Spock didn't seem to appreciate his well-thought out, logical arguments being termed "infantile". Nevertheless, he let it pass and asked what he believed to be the most pertinent question at the moment. "By recommending a full stop mid-warp during a rescue mission?"

"It's not a rescue mission. Listen to what Danni and I are saying! It's an attack!"

"Based on what facts?" Spock questioned.

Both Danielle and Jim looked at each other. Every eye on the bridge was focused on them. They would only have one chance at this.

Jim steadied himself, speaking in a clear tone of voice. "That same anomaly, a lightening storm in space, also occurred on the day of my birth, before a Romulan ship attacked the _USS Kelvin_. "He turned to Pike. "You know that, sir. I read your dissertation."

Danielle held up her hand to forestall Spock's objection. "And I checked the scientific description of the energy surge that was reported near Vulcan prior to Starfleet's reception of the request for assistance. It's nearly identical to that which appeared during the incident with the _Kelvin_. There's not been another lightening storm, or anything like that sort of phenomena, in this region in all that time."

"Can you be certain of that, Doctor Kirk?" Spock questioned, "You were only small child at that time."

Danielle turned a serious expression in the Vulcan's direction. "My father died in that attack, Commander. I made it a point to learn everything I could about how and why."

"Furthermore, that ship which had formidable and advanced weaponry, was never seen or heard from again." Jim continued. "The _Kelvin_ attack took place on the edge of Klingon space. And at 2300 hours last night, there was an attack; 47 Klingon war-birds were destroyed by Romulans, sir. And it was reported that the Romulans were in one ship, one massive ship."

"And you know of the Klingon attack, how?" Pike inquired.

Jim pointed at Uhura, who had remained silent up until this point. She may not have liked Jim, but to her credit, she wasn't letting that bias sway her judgment of his report. And after hearing all of the pieces, she was able to give him her support without flinching. "Sir, I intercepted and translated the message myself. Kirk's report is accurate."

The Kirks had given their evidence, and now delivered their final statement. "We're warping into a trap, sir." Jim said, "The Romulans are waiting for us, I promise you that."

Pike took a few moments to process what he had heard, while Danielle held her breath and waited. She knew that the stakes were high in this moment. Pike could very well still send them both to the brig and continue on as before. If he did so... she didn't even want to think about what might happen.

Pike certainly seemed to want to believe them. He then turned a questioning gaze on Spock, who would undoubtedly give the most logical slant to this. Spock gave his answer unequivocally. "The cadet's logic is sound. And Lieutenant Uhura's record is unmatched in Xenolinguistics. We would be wise to accept her conclusion."

This seemed to be enough for Pike. He turned to the communications officer. "Scan Vulcan space. Check for any transmissions in Romulan."

A little embarrassed, the officer was forced to admit. "Sir, I'm not sure I can distinguish the Romulan language from Vulcan."

"What about you?" Pike said to Uhura, "Can you speak Romulan, Cadet..."

"Uhura. All three dialects, sir."

"Uhura, relieve the Lieutenant." Pike said, at once.

"Yes, sir."

Silence engulfed the bridge, before Pike turned to the communications officer off to the side. "Hannity, hail the _USS Truman_."

The officer complied, but almost immediately his expression became confused. "All the other ships are out of warp, sir, and have arrived at Vulcan, but we seemed to lost all contact."

Uhura had been scanning the area herself, and she seemed to be just as mystified as her fellow officer. "Sir, I pick up no Romulan transmissions, or transmissions of any kind."

"It's because they're being attacked." said Jim.

"If you come out of warp, without any defenses or weapons up, this ship will be destroyed within seconds." Danielle agreed.

Another moment of silence, as Pike finally made up his mind. "Shields up." he ordered, "Red alert."

Immediately, the lights aboard the bridge began to blink red and alarms began blaring. Everyone on the bridge prepared for the upcoming assault. There was a palpable feeling of fear and adrenaline which had been absent before. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath as they approached Vulcan. "Arrival at Vulcan in five seconds." Sulu said, "Four... three... two-"

Both Danielle and Jim looked at each other, and unconsciously reached out to grip each other's hands. More than anyone else on the bridge at that moment, they were the only ones who knew what kind danger they were able to fly into. Nightmares from memories of long ago were about to rear their ugly heads.

The _Enterprise_ dropped out of warp, and into a war-zone.


	13. Vulcan Attack

Vulcan Attack:

Ashley hadn't known what to expect when Jim and Danielle had declared without any hesitation that Vulcan was under attack. A small part of her had thought they were both crazy, but her gut instinct had risen to high alert the more she had heard their shared certainty. As they made their final approach towards Vulcan, seconds before dropping out of warp, she had felt a cold shiver of dread race down her spine. She had known that whatever was waiting to greet them when they dropped out of warp, it would be far more terrible than she or any of the new crew could have dreamed of.

She had never been more sorry to be proven right.

The very instant that the _Enterprise_ dropped out of warp, the first thing which greeted them was the sight of the wrecked armada of Starfleet vessels scattered around the planet. What had once been dozens of ships, the very finest of the fleet, had been utterly annihilated within a mere few seconds. Yet, there was no sign of any enemy vessel, Romulan or otherwise. Ashley found herself staring at the wreckage in horrified awe. What sort of ship had the firepower to wipe out an entire fleet, without suffering any such losses themselves?

However, the _Enterprise_ was in very real danger of becoming one of those causalities, as the looming pieces of the destroyed vessels filled the view screen, coming inexorably closer to smash the now very vulnerable _Enterprise_.

The bridge was in chaos all around her. Her father was issuing orders in a tight, controlled voice, letting his years of command experience allow him to maintain order even in the midst of near death. The other crewmembers responded to those orders, raising the shields, initiating evasive action, calling out damage reports as the ship began to be struck by stray pieces of debris. Even so, the tension of fear could not be completely banished from the faces of any of the crewmembers. They had no idea what they had just flown into, and seeing what had become of the other ships, they probably had every right to wonder if they themselves would be next.

She could barely keep track of everything and everyone on the bridge. She caught a brief flash of Bones and Danielle racing into the turbolift. Whatever disagreements they might have had previously were now a moot point. They would be needed in sickbay when the inevitable injured began arriving. She looked back around at Jim, who was staring out at the storm of debris, his expression one of fear and cold rage. She couldn't imagine what he must be going through right now. All the others were only experiencing this for the first time. He had lived it, and had lost so much already.

As the ship reeled from the impact of of debris, Ashley somehow managed to stumble over to Jim. She had no idea what she could do or say right now, but he at least needed to have some sort of support. No sooner had she arrived at his side, though, then something else appeared on the viewscreen which made an ugly situation even more hopeless.

There, in the very midst of the debris it had caused, was an enormous vessel. Ashley had never seen a ship so huge or menacing. Easily ten times the size of the _Enterprise_ , the ship was a nightmarish collection of dozen upon dozens of tentacle-like protrusions. Along those tentacles were what looked like multiple rows of sharp teeth that seemed to glow in the darkness of space. Suddenly, Ashley understood how the entire fleet had been destroyed, and why they would be next.

Spock confirmed this only moments later. "Captain, they're locking torpedoes."

Pike's reaction was immediate. "Divert auxiliary power from the port nacelles to forward shields."

Ashley didn't think that shields were going to do any good against a ship of such mass. Surely, they must have weapons to match. A quick glance at Jim's expression showed that he had the same doubts. A moment later, deep, shuddering impacts from the enemy vessel's torpedoes threatened to throw the entire bridge crew off their feet. Counsels flared brighter, as proximity alarms became louder. New reports of damage, far greater than before, began flooding the bridge. However much the debris field surrounding Vulcan had taken a toll on the _Enterprise_ , the Romulan ship could finish the job far more easily and swiftly.

"Shields at 32%." said Sulu, "Their weapons are more powerful, sir. We can't take another hit like that."

"Get me Starfleet command." said Pike.

"Captain, the Romulan ship has lowered some kind of high energy device into the Vulcan atmosphere." said Spock, "Its signal appears to be blocking our communications and transporter abilities."

"All power to forward shields." said Pike, "Prepare to fire all weapons."

Ashley knew that wouldn't be enough. She was naturally an optimist by nature, but things were starting to turn dark even by her standards. Another few salvos from that Romulan ship, and the _Enterprise_ would be destroyed along with the rest of the fleet. However, in the moment before the _Enterprise_ could attack, there was a moment of unexplained stillness, wherein the Romulans didn't take advantage of the opportunity to fire.

"Captain," said Uhura, from her station, "We're being hailed."

This was an unexpected development. The Romulans hadn't shown any interest so far in negotiating. All eyes turned to the viewscreen, as a Romulan with dark tattoos across his face appeared. He didn't seem angry that the _Enterprise_ was attacking, nor did he breath threats the very instant he saw them. Instead, he was calm, dangerously calm. "Hello." He said, as though he were meeting an acquaintance of a friend for the first time.

"I'm Captain Christopher Pike." said her father, with as much calm and control as he could muster. "To whom am I speaking?"

"Hi, Christopher, I'm Nero." said the Romulan captain, again, continuing to show no reaction whatsoever that seemed appropriate to the situation.

"You've declared war against the Federation." said Pike, "Withdraw. I'll agree to arrange a conference with Romulan leadership at a neutral location-"

Nero immediately interrupted Pike. "I do not speak for the Empire. We stand apart." Ashley couldn't help but feel puzzled by this statement, and worried. If this Nero wasn't acting on the orders of the Romulans, then what was his ultimate goal?

Nero's piercing expression suddenly moved from Pike to look directly at Spock. For the first time, his expression seemed to show something beyond bland politeness. Indeed, when he looked into the face of the young Vulcan, Ashley saw a flash of manic hatred in the Romulan's eyes, and his voice developed into a low, angry hiss. "As does your Vulcan crewmember, isn't that right, Spock?"

Ashley and Jim both looked at Spock in confusion. Neither of them knew why Nero would single out Spock, or how he would even know the Vulcan by name. Spock was as caught off-guard as they were, rising from his seat, and coming forward towards the screen. "Pardon me, I do not believe that you and I are acquainted."

"No, we're not, yet." said Nero, darkly, "Spock, there's something I would like you to see." The statement sounded like an unspoken threat, and there was the barest hint of satisfaction in Nero's tone when he said it. He held Spock's gaze for just a moment longer, before returning his attention to Pike, his tone once more becoming business-like. "Captain Pike, your transporter had been disabled. As you can see by the rest of your armada, you have no choice. You will man a shuttle, come aboard the _Narada_ , for negotiations. That is all."

The viewscreen abruptly went dark once more, leaving an uneasy silence across the bridge. Everyone was looking at Pike, silently wondering what the Captain would do next all save Ashley. She already knew exactly what her father was going to do. As a captain, he was concerned for the safety of his crew above all else. If he believed that flying straight into enemy territory could buy the _Enterprise_ a little more time, he would do it without hesitation.

He had already made his choice. He didn't even need to say anything, for Jim and Spock just as Ashley did what Pike was planning on doing. Only a few moments before, the two had been almost literally at each other's throats. Now, they were stumbling over each other in agreement.

"He'll kill you, you know that." said Jim.

"Captain, we gain nothing by diplomacy." Spock's reasoning, as ever, was logical. However, he to, seemed concerned for Pike's safety.

"Going over to that ship is a mistake."

"I, too, agree." said Spock, uttering words he would have thought impossible only a hours before. "You should rethink your strategy."

Ashley could not add her voice to pleading with her father. She would have liked to say that she was being as selfless as her father. If he was willing to sacrifice himself, she would stand behind him completely. There was nothing she could have done to dissuade him, so she was going to follow his orders.

However, if she had been forced to admit the truth, she would have to admit that, for the first time in her life, she was absolutely terrified. She had grown up on a starship; she had seen her father in nearly every situation that was demanded of any Starfleet captain. But, she had never seen him facing a situation where he was being forced to make the ultimate sacrifice. These might literally be the last minutes she would ever spend with him. How was she supposed to say anything to that?

"I understand." said Pike, acknowledging all the objections of his officers, while maintaining his position. He looked around at the other members of the bridge crew. "I need officers who have been trained in advanced hand to hand combat."

At the comm, Sulu's hand went up. "I have training, sir."

"Then, come with me." He said, "Kirk, you to, you're not supposed to be here anyway."

Ashley was not about to be left behind. If her dad was going into the belly of the beast, she was going to go with him as far she could. "Captain, I'm going to."

"Cadet, no. I won't-"

"Captain, I'm not supposed to be here, either. But I am. You might as well use me to. You know what I can do." Pike seemed to hesitate for a split second, before she took a step forward and said, in a lower tone of voice. "Please, dad, use me."

Pike, convinced but reluctant nonetheless, nodded. He than turned to Chekov and said, "Radio the engine room, have Chief Engineer Olsen meet us at Shuttle Bay Five."

"Aye, Keptin." said Chekov.

"Let's go." Pike said, as the four officers followed him.

They descended into the bowls of the ship, emerging from the turbolift into the chaos which was the hanger bay. Pike had said nothing on the ride down, but Ashley knew from the expression on her father's face that he was in the midst of forming a desperate plan. Whether or not it had any chance of success perhaps wouldn't matter at this point, but her father had never been one to simply take the easy way out.

Now, his face was set and determined, as he started outlining his plan. "Without transporters, we can't beam off the ship. We can't assist Vulcan, we can't do our job. Mr. Kirk, Mr. Sulu, Miss Pike, Engineer Olsen will space-jump from the shuttle. You will land on that machine they lowered into the atmosphere that's scrambling our gear. You'll get inside. You'll disable it, then beam back to the ship."

Jim, Sulu and Ashley all exchanged astonished looks. "That doesn't sound difficult at all, does it?" said Ashley.

"Yeah, all in a day's work." said Sulu.

Pike continued. "Mr. Spock, I'm leaving you in command of the Enterprise. Once we have transport capabilities and communications back up, you'll contact Starfleet and report what the hell's going on here. And if all else fails, fall back, rendezvous with the fleet in the Laurentian system." He then turned to Jim and proceeded to drop what was probably the biggest bombshell of all. "Kirk, I'm promoting you to First Officer."

This caught all of them completely off-guard, but none more so than Jim and Spock. "What?!" said Jim.

"Captain." Spock said at the same time, "please. I apologize. But the complexities of human pranks escape me."

"It's not a prank, Spock." Pike continued, in a tone that convinced even Spock of his seriousness. "And I'm not the Captain, you are."

That seemed to settle everything, except for one small point that Ashley was still concerned about. "Sir, I don't seem to remember hearing how we rescue you from that monster of a ship after we stop the drill."

"Yes, sir. What does happen to you?" Jim asked.

Pike paused, but only for a split second. Indeed, Ashley didn't know if any of the others had even seen it. "I guess you'll have to come back and get me." He turned back to Spock and said, "Careful with the ship, Spock. She's brand new."

Spock's only response to this was to raise his eyebrow, as though he hadn't quite gotten the joke. However, Pike had already made his orders quite clear, and Spock was never one to shirk any responsibility that was placed on him. He immediately turned around and headed back from the bridge, while Pike addressed Jim and Sulu. "Suit up, gentlemen. Pike, I need to speak to you in private."

Sulu and Jim both looked over at Ashley sympathetically. Ashley herself wasn't feeling to confidant as her father had his stern lecture face on. Nonetheless, the two men hurried away, leaving Pike and Ashley behind. The bay around them was still humming with activity, but it suddenly seemed as though all the commotion and noise were miles away.

"Ashley, as your commanding officer, I have to tell you that I'm extremely disappointed in you."

"I know, sir."

"And when all this is over, I won't stop whatever punishment Starfleet decides to impose on you."

"Yes, sir. I understand that."

Pike's face slowly began to soften. The mask of a stern, unbiased Captain faded for a few moments, as he looked at Ashley. When he next spoke, his voice was quivering with barely concealed relief. "But, as your father, princess, all I can say is how relieved I am that you disobeyed orders."

Ashley was somewhat baffled by her father's abrupt change. "What did you just say?"

"Ashley, I saw what happened out there. There was no way _Farragut_ could have survived. All hands were lost." He took a step forward and reached out a hand to touch her. "He took a step forward and reached out a hand to touch her face tenderly. "If you had been onboard-"

He couldn't bring himself to finish the thought. Instead, acting on an impulse, he pulled her into a tight embrace. "I'm just so glad that I didn't lose you."

Ashley returned the embrace. "Be sure to return the favor, all right? Don't die on that ship."

"I'll do my best, princess. Now, suit up. You have a space jump to do."


	14. Witness to Apocalypse

Witness to Apocalypse:

It didn't take long for Ashley to catch up to Jim, Sulu and the newly arrived Chief Engineer Olson. "There you are." said Jim, "I was afraid that we would be leaving without you."

"Don't worry, the Captain was very understanding." said Ashley, as she started gathering up the equipment she would need for the space jump. However, it was only now starting to dawn on her what she was about to do, and as she started to put on the suit, her anxiety began to rise. She really couldn't push it to the back of her mind, as her hands started to shake violently in the next few minutes. Reaching for the helmet, she could barely get a grip on the smooth, metal surface, and it fell from her hands before she could put it on.

Luckily, Sulu was able to grab it, and when he handed it back to her, there was an expression of his concern on his face. "Are you alright, Pike?"

"Me? Yeah, sure, great." said Ashley, perfectly aware of the fact that her voice sounded breathless and shaky. "We're just about to jump out of a shuttle hundreds of thousands of kilometers above a planet. We'll be falling through the vacuum of space, where any crack in our space suits could instantly crush us. If we survive the tumble through the atmosphere, we'll have to land on a singular point that will more likely kill us on impact. Of course, I'm absolutely fine."

Jim had noticed by this point that Ashley was on the point of working herself up into a panic, and reminded her, "Hey, Ash, breath."

"Right, thanks." muttered Ashley, as she took several deep breaths and focused on getting her heart-rate to something that was more normal. She had only minimal success, but she managed to keep herself from hyperventilating. She started to put on the gloves, and adjust the helmet.

Sulu still appeared slightly confused, so she took a moment and explained. "I might have a small problem with heights, and enclosed, tight spaces. And by a big problem, I mean a huge one. As you can imagine, I'm not exactly looking forward to this."

She was grateful that Sulu didn't react as though she were completely out of her mind. In fact, he actually nodded in understanding and said, "Honestly, I'm sort of terrified on this myself. It's not exactly the sanest thing any normal person would do. But, we don't have a choice."

"That just makes it depressing." Ashley responded, "But don't worry about me. I get the feeling that nothing any of us could do from this point would be a good idea."

By this point, all four of them had managed to get their gear on, and they hurried aboard the shuttle a few moments later.

Despite her nervousness and the general feeling of uncertainty, all four of them managed to get onboard the shuttle and into the position a few moments later. The tension and anxiety were running high, though oddly, Olson was the only one who seemed to be excited about the whole adventure. Indeed, Ashley thought he appeared to be bouncing out of his seat with anticipation.

"You have the charges, right?" Jim asked.

"Oh yeah!" said Olson, in a manner that was more excited than was probably healthy considering the circumstances. "I can't wait to kick some Romulan ass, right?"

For a moment, Jim could only look at Olson oddly, before acknowledging this declaration with a confused, "Right."

"Yeah, right." responded Olson, who didn't seem to pick up on the rather uncomfortable vibe he was giving off.

Jim left the Chief Engineer to his most likely psychotic fantasies, and turned his attention to Sulu. "What kind of combat training do you have?"

Sulu's response was immediate and delivered with pride. "Fencing."

Both Ashley and Jim stared at him, trying to determine if he was kidding. He wasn't. "Oh, fencing." said Jim, trying to sound impressed.

"That should come in handy, at some point." said Ashley, who really did think that advanced knowledge in fencing could be handy, just not in the present circumstance.

If Sulu noticed their reaction, he didn't show it. Instead, he asked, "What about you? What's your specialty?"

Ashley, rather grateful for the distraction which the question offered from her pounding heart, managed to conjure up a smirk. "Well, I can summon fire and water with my mind." She held out both her hands, and a moment later, two spheres of water and fire appeared in front of her.

Both Sulu and even Olson looked impressed. "That will come in handy if we run into a tight spot." said Olson.

"Let's just hope that there won't be that many tight spots." Said Ashley, as she dissipated the elements. "This is going to be hard enough as it is."

They had no more time for conversation, as they heard from the comm at the front of the shuttle that they were clear of the _Enterprise_ space _._ The four crewmembers got to their feet, Ashley struggling to hide her shaking. She knew that there was no turning back now. Not that she would have even if she had been able to; her father and her best friend were flying right into the jaws of death. She would be damned if she let them do so without her.

"Crew," said Pike, his voice echoing through the comm in Ashley's helmet, "We're approaching the drop zone. You have one shot to land on the platform. You may have fix this to pull your 'chute as soon as possible. Remember, the _Enterprise_ won't be able to beam you back until you turn off that drill. Good luck. Three... two... one..."

With that, the floor beneath them suddenly opened. Gravity and air were sucked out and Ashley was falling.

* * *

In the Sick Bay of the _Enterprise,_ chaos reigned. The ordered and calm preparation of a rescue and recovery mission had been replaced by the horror of a totally unforeseen ambush. The med crew were doing their best to keep up with the endless flow of wounded pouring into the Med Bay, but it seemed as though they were only keeping up with a small fraction.

It was all hands on deck, and Danielle had been pulled into the tangle. She was trained in triage, and she was attempting to put the wounded into some form of organization that would free the rest of the medical personnel to focus their attention on the more seriously injured.

She was only on the outskirts of the chaos, though. Leonard was right in the center. He was stumbling from one bio-bed to the next, assessing each patient and medical personnel, giving advice where he could, working to stabilize as quickly as he could. His uniform and handsome face was covered with dirt and grime. He couldn't exactly be called the center of calm in the midst of a storm, as he was as beaten as the rest of the able-bodied in Sick Bay. He would be better described as a counterforce of his own against the maelstrom of battle. He might have been buffeted by those winds as much as anyone, but he would not be beaten by them.

Leonard would be damned if he didn't make every effort to snatch every life he could from the storm. And every person around him seemed to take strength from that stubbornness, and went to their from task with even greater determination.

The chaos around them was suddenly interrupted by a call from the bridge. It was the first time that the had heard from anyone else on the ship since this whole nightmare had started. Judging from the distant explosions which they were still hearing, and the aftershocks that were rocking the ship, Danielle knew that it wasn't good news which they were about to hear.

Leonard rushed over to the comm on the wall, and Spock's steady voice came through the speaker. "Dr. Puri, report."

"It's McCoy." said Leonard, his voice sounding tired and choked, yet charged with adrenaline. "Dr. Puri was on Deck Six." Deck Six, the site of one of the first explosions which had torn a gaping hole in the ship. Puri had never stood a chance. "He's dead."

There was the slightest pause, as though this news had caught even Spock off-guard. Danielle was certain that even the seemingly logical Spock was being shaken by this encounter. "Then you have just inherited his responsibility as Chief Medical Officer."

"Yeah," said Leonard, voice stiff with sarcasm, "tell me something I don't know."

The communication abruptly was cut off, as a new round of explosions shuddered within the ship. These didn't come from weapon's fire, but from secondary reactions as a result of the damage which the _Enterprise_ had already sustained.

Danielle had been battling flashbacks ever since she had seen that massive Romulan ship looming out in the blackness of space. Clinically, she knew that experiencing a near identical experience as the death of her father was going to affect her on a psychological level.

These continuous internal shudders, the flashing lights of Sick Bay, and the loud voices of echoing around her were causing a sharp divide in her mind. She was powerless in both past and present, as though she was a frightened little girl witnessed her entire world being torn apart.

She pushed the feelings away, tried to ignore the shaking of her palms as she worked methodically through each patient. She was _not_ powerless right now; there was something she could do to change this outcome, if only for one person.

There was another internal explosion, this one significantly more intense than the last ones. Seconds later, Leonard received yet another transmission, this time from a panicked and frantic voice screaming for help.

"Deck Nine has been hit." said Leonard, over the loud chaos of Sick Bay. "They're suffering heavy casualties, and facing a possible breach. I need a med-time right away to see to the survivors."

Several voices spoke up, including Danielle's; Leonard flicked his gaze over to her, and for a heartbeat, she was sure that he wouldn't let her go. However, he only nodded once, his eyes imploring her to be careful. "I love you." He mouthed.

"I love you, too." She responded, just as silently, but with the same intensity of feeling. Gathering quickly what supplies he could, she hurried after the small group which was leaving for Deck Nine.

* * *

It was a curious sensation, free-falling through a void where gravity was totally absent. And by curious, Ashley meant completely terrifying. As she and the rest began their downward journey, she was immediately aware of the vast blackness around them, and how easy it would be for one misfire on their jet packs to send them hurtling out into the abyss.

Her heartbeat was hammering in her ears, could feel the blood pounding in her head. And even in the silence of space, she was certain that anyone would have been able to hear her breathing coming in short gasps through her helmet.

She was almost relieved when they were free from the blackness of space and the crushing weight of the atmosphere, and burst into the bright sun of the Vulcan sky.

However, that relief was short-lived. She could see the thin spire of the mining shaft, buried deep in the planet's core. They still needed to stop that thing; they still needed to land on the miniscule point of the landing platform, which was swiftly approaching.

As her father had told them right before they made the jump, they would only have one shot to pull their 'chutes in order to have enough maneuvering room in order to actually get on the drill platform without getting caught in the violent headwinds which were still present at this altitude. They could all try to make estimates based on their readings, but so much of it was going to rely completely on gut instinct and plain old luck.

They continued plummeting through the sky, the long, metal pulley of the drilling arm serving as their guide to the platform. "Kirk to _Enterprise_." said Jim, as they saw the tiny dot of the platform growing ever closer, "Distance to target, 5,000 meters."

"4,500 meters to target." said Sulu, after what seemed only two seconds later.

Ashley tried to focus despite the sweat which she could feel dropping into her eyes, tried to block out the ground so far below them and the crushing confines of her helmet, focusing all her attention on the platform which was swiftly approaching.

"4,000 meters." said Jim.

"3,000 meters." Sulu counted down.

Ashley's gut instinct kicked in at this point. She pulled her chute. Almost immediately, her rapid descent was slowed, as she was jerked upwards none to gently by the unfurling of her parachute from the pack on her back. Despite that, it was almost something of a relief to have some control over her movements now, though even that was slight. The winds were buffeting her like a kite, and she could still very easily be blown off course or slam into the mining.

Jim and Sulu deployed their parachutes a few seconds after she did. However, Olson, shot past them, continuing to plummet downwards towards the platform. "2,000 meters." His voice came through the comm, exhilarated and excited. He was pushing it to the very last moment, and Ashley knew that it was doomed to failure.

Even Jim, with his penchant for pushing nearly everything he did to the extreme, could tell that Olson's delay was a very bad idea. "Come on, Olson," he cried desperately to the Chief Engineer, "Pull your chute."

"No, not yet!" said Olson, to enraptured by the target to even bother listening, "1,500 meters!"

Both Sulu and Jim tried to shout additional warnings, but it was too late. Olson pulled his cute at the last possible moment, at 1,000 meters. With a cry of excitement, he hurtled towards the platform. That excitement quickly turned to one of pained surprise, as he slammed into the platform. Unable to gain his footing and with no room to maneuver, he rolled across the platform, and fell. The winds pulled him into the flames which were boring a hole into Vulcan's surface far below. There was only a long, terrified scream, and then silence.

Olson was gone, and their entire mission had suddenly grown more grim and serious. However, none of those making the jump had time to mourn for a fallen ally. They still had to survive themselves.

Ashley landed with a hard slam on the surface of the drill. The impact rattled her bones and knocked the breath from her lungs. She was barely able to pull her 'chute back into her pack before the high winds blew her completely off the platform.

She was the lucky one. Jim barely managed to land on the other side of the drill, in much the same winded fashion as Ashley. They didn't have much time to recover, however. Almost as soon as they landed, a hatch opened in the drill's floor. Two Romulans appeared, much larger and heavily armored then Ashley would have expected or even hoped.

They didn't need to be told that the newcomers who had dropped from the sky were enemies. One charged forward at Jim while the other set his sights on Ashley. She barely managed to avoid the first few really had no sort of plan at this point beyond not getting killed. The Romulan was taller and stronger than she was, as made evident when the first punch slammed into her chest. Stumbling back, she found herself trapped on the bulkhead of the drill.

She saw the ax heading for her head, and twisted her body around to avoid the blow. Her only chance lay in using the size of the Romulan against him, long enough for her to get some sort of strike on him. The Romulan tripped and barely kept his footing. He whirled around, his eyes ablaze with rage. He let loose a growl and made another attack. This time, Ashley was ready. She managed to raise her hands above her head, and grabbed the ax just before it could split her skull in two.

The two struggled to regain control of the ax. Ashley knew that it would be only a few more seconds before the Romulan would be able to wrench the ax from her hands, but she did have one last desperate trick up her sleeve.

She focused on the places where the Romulans hands met the metal, and made the metal begin to hum white hot. The Romulan screamed in pain, dropping the ax, and taking several steps back.

Ashley seized the opportunity. She dove forward, putting all of her strength into the push. The Romulan, still reeling from his burns, wasn't able to accommodate the force, and was caught off-balance. Ashley finally was able to grab her phaser and fire it several times into the Romulans body.

Gaining herself some temporary breathing space, she looked around her, only to see that Jim had fared somewhat worse than herself. He had been pushed off the platform, and was now barely hanging on. The Romulan who had attacked him was trying to finish him, smashing at Jim's hands with his feet.

Before she could move to help him, Sulu suddenly appeared from nowhere, there was a sword clutched in one hand, already green with the blood of a Romulan who had been unlucky enough to cross paths with an experienced swordsman like Sulu. He didn't even pause, but stabbed the Romulan straight in the back. Mortally wounded, the Romulan fell off the platform, tumbling down to the planet below.

Sulu was able to pull Jim up by the time that Ashley ran over to them. "Are you two alright?" she shouted, above the roar of the drill and the rushing wind.

"Yeah, I think so." said Jim, and Sulu nodded an affirmative.

However, despite the fact that they had managed to survive a space jump onto a tiny surface, and defeated three Romulans, the most important aspect of their job still wasn't done. The roaring of the drill behind them reminded them all to vividly of that. "What now?" Sulu asked, as all three of them struggled to regain their breath. "Olson had the charges?"

"I know." said Jim, as he hurried over to the two Romulan corpses that remained intact on the surface of the drill.

"What do we do now?" Sulu asked.

"This." Jim grabbed the remaining guns of the two Romulan officers. Throwing one to Sulu, he shouted to Ashley, "Ash, now's the time to show off that firepower of yours'."

Ashley didn't need to be told twice. She held out both hands, aiming for the central core of the drill. She concentrated, and a stream of fire burst from each hand, directly into the reactor. The heat was so intense, that both Sulu and Jim had to move away from her as they began to fire their weapons into the core. Ashley was unaffected by the heat, though, and remained staring intensely into the flames, the orange light dancing in her sharp grey eyes.

Under the combined attack of both fire and laser weapons, the drill didn't stand much of a chance. Soon, the low, ominous rumbling and the vibrations emanating from the drill stopped altogether. The energy that had been pulsating from the core into the very heart of Vulcan ceased.

Ashley recalled the fire back into her hands. "Did it work?" She asked.

"Looks like it." said Sulu, who was staring up at the gargantuan machine, before looking over at her. "Nice gift you have there, by the way."

"You to, on the swordplay side of things anyway." said Ashley.

Jim spoke up. "Now, we just need to hope that the dampening field also went out with it. I don't know what's going on here, but i don't really want to stick around to find out."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Jim's communicator beeped. "Kirk here."

"Mr. Kirk, Lieutenants Sulu and Pike," said Uhura's voice, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, all things considering." said Jim, "But we would all three of us prefer not having to stick around."

Before, they could say anything else, a high pitched shrieking sound began piercing the surrounding wind-swept silence. Sulu, Ashley and Jim looked skyward, and almost before they could see it, a tiny circular pod plummeted past them, and down towards the planet's surface. Looking down, they saw the pod disappear into the gaping hole that the drill had created.

For an instant, there was nothing, but than, a massive explosion rocked the entire planet, sending shock waves upward into the air, as the drill platform began to rock violently. All three of the lost their balance, barely managing to hold on. "Kirk to _Enterprise_ , they just launched something at the planet."

No immediate answer came, and they all glanced at each other, growing more and more worried. "Kirk to _Enterprise_ , would you please hurry?" Jim shouted as the drill platform grew increasingly unstable.

"We're having trouble getting a lock on you." said the transporter chief, "We'll have to beam you up individually. Try to stand still."

"Right, stand still on a pitching see-saw." muttered Ashley, as the platform gave another sickening lurch.

However, Ashley was lucky. She had been the farthest away from the edge, so she saw still able to keep her balance. Sulu wasn't so lucky. As the platform banked, the helmsman fell over the side with a terrified scream. Jim didn't even seem to think, but raced off the platform in a flying leap to grab him.

"Jim! Sulu!" cried Ashley, reaching out a desperate hand that she knew would make no difference.

But than, the world around her began to fade out as the bright particles of a transporter beam engulfed her. Seconds later, she materialized on the transporter pad of the _Enterprise_.

She stumbled and nearly fell over. As her feet scrambled to readjust to stable ground, relief at being safe turned immediately to horror and terror as Jim's voice screamed over the comm. " _Enterprise_ , we're falling without a 'chute! Beam us up! Beam us up!"

"What the hell is happening?" Ashley demanded, as she hurried down the few stairs, and around the back of the transporter engineer.

"I don't know." said the chief, as he tried working the controls. There were two life signs on the screen, but they were so close together, they were more or less attached. "Mr. Kirk and Sulu are falling too fast, I can't get a lock on them."

"You need to get them back before they crash land." said Ashley.

"If I can't get them back, there won't be any land for them to crash on." Said the chief, "We just received a message from the bridge, ship-wide. The Romulans have somehow managed to open a black-hole in the center of Vulcan. We have minutes at most before the entire planet is engulfed."

Ashley was shocked into silence by this latest revelation. She hadn't exactly wondered what the Romulans were doing to the Vulcan, or even what purpose the drill had served. Now, it came home to her with white hot clarity. Somehow, that drill had been a doomsday weapon, and the Romulans were using it.

It was also all to clear that she, Jim and Sulu had failed. Thousands of millions were going to die, and they had been unable to stop it.

But, before she could fully come to terms with the implications of what those thoughts were, Chekov suddenly burst into the room. "Move!" He shouted, to the transporter chief, as he pushed him out of the chair. "I can do that! I can do that! Give me manual control."

Furiously, Chekov began working the controls almost faster than Ashley's eyes could follow. She might have found the the display fascinating, had she not been more terrified with each passing second that brought Jim and Sulu hurtling to the ground.

" _Enterprise_ , where are you?" Jim was screaming over his head set.

Chekov was gripping the control stick, trying to get the two falling lifesigns locked firmly in his crosshairs. His face was set in intense look of concentration. "Hold on, hold on, hold on." He was muttering over and over.

Ashley was gripping the back of Chekov's chair, listening as Jim kept screaming for them to beam him and Sulu up. Finally, the red crosshairs which had been following their lifesigns flashed green. "Compensating gravitational pull and-Gotcha!" Chekov pushed the proper buttons on the console, and seconds later, Jim and Sulu materialized on the pad.

The two of them landed with an abrupt and painful smack on the pad. They were both breathing hard and looked harried and dazed. But they otherwise appeared to be unharmed.

"Thanks." Sulu said, as they tried to catch their breath.

"No problem." said Jim.

The rest of the transporter engineers were gaping, some at Jim and Sulu, and others at Chekov, who had managed to pull the two from free fall mere inches from the ground. Chekov himself was sweating from the strain of concentration. Now seeing his handiwork pay off, he could only begin to laugh. Ashley laughed him, and patted him on the shoulder. "Well done, Whiz kid. I couldn't have done it better."

However, all thought of celebration vanished when Spock suddenly hurried into the transporter room and got on the pad. "Clear the pad, I'm going to the surface."

Even as Jim and Sulu tried scrambling out of the way, and another of the transporter staff began the sequence to send him to the surface. Jim was saying to Spock, "The surface of what? You're going down there? Are you nuts?"

Spock blatantly ignored Jim, and ordered the crewmember, "Energize!"

Spock's form dematerialized, leaving Ashley, Jim and Sulu standing there, looking after him in shock.

* * *

Deck Nine resembled a scene from hell as Danielle and the rest of the med team arrived. Half the deck had been destroyed by explosions, leaving behind blackened streaks on the white walls, and broken metal scattered across the deck. It was impossible to miss the red amidst black, nor the broken bodies in the wreckage.

It was an unnerving sight, for Danielle especially. She had been a child the last time the _Narada_ had attacked. But she could still vividly remember the destruction, the sight, the sound and the smell had stayed with her through the years. The event had haunted her nightmares for years, and stepping onto that deck was something to reliving one of these nightmares in reality.

The small rescue party made their way cautiously down the corridor. The deck plating under their feet was groaning and creaking, sounding as though it would give way under their feet. Rounding the corner, they saw that a large portion of the corridor had been blocked by fallen bulkheads and pieces of debris.

"Hello?" Danielle called out, "Can you hear me?"

There was an immediate murmur of voices beyond the wall of debris, and in the dim, flickering light, Danielle was able to see at least a dozen crewmembers, some of them bloodied and bruised, but all remarkably alive. Sensing that help had arrived, they began clustering behind the debris, panicked voices raised in a confused, though unified cry for help.

"Hang on," said Danielle, doing her best to calm their nerves, "We're getting you out of there, just stay put and don't move."

She and some of the others began to move forward to see how they could begin moving the debris, or at least loosen their barrier which kept the injured crewmembers captive. However, before they could do so, there was another violent shuddering under their feet. The shuddering didn't subside after only a few seconds, but continued, growing in intensity with each passing second.

They suddenly heard a series of massive explosions along the bulkheads of Deck Nine; the chain reaction could have been caused by a direct blast from the Romulan ship or as a result of the damage which had already resulted. In the end, it really didn't matter. What did matter was the end result.

Danielle and the rest watched in horror as a gaping hole was ripped through the corridor, the emergency force fields barely coming on in time to prevent them from being sucked into space.

The people they had come to rescue were not so fortunate. They were on the wrong side of the shield. Those were not burned by the intense flames of explosions, were drawn irrevocably into the vacuum of space. Cries of pain and desperation were lost in the crackling of flames or the silence of space. But cry that she heard, and every face that she saw screaming in terror, stabbed straight into Danielle, as she realized that she had failed.

However, what they had just witnessed was only the beginning of death. The wound of the hull breach, gave them a clear view of Vulcan, a bright, golden planet standing out clearly against the blackness of space. Danielle and the rest had no idea what the readings on the bridge had indicated or that Vulcan and it's people were on the verge of annihilation.

Danielle, already shaken by the loss of life which she had just witnessed, now saw everything below her in slow motion. Starting at the very core of the planet, something like a great reverse tidal wave began pulling everything inward into itself. Bit by bit, a gaping maw blacker than the expanse of space swallowed Vulcan from the inside out.

She didn't know how it was possible; none of them did. But, they realized at almost the exact same moment, the horror of what they were seeing. They were witnessing the death of a planet and the end of a species, in the destruction of Vulcan.

Danielle felt sick to her stomach. She wanted desperately to turn away, to cover her eyes, stop her ears, ball up into a corner and shut everything out. She had done that when the _Narada_ had attacked the _Kelvin_ , killing her father and destroying her childhood. She had been a small child then, and it had worked.

But now, try as she might, she couldn't tear her eyes away. All those lives, billions of innocents wiped out within the blink of an eye! How many of those lives had been children, just like she had been, who had cried without realizing what they were really going through? The control which Danielle had been trying so desperately to maintain broke. She felt the tears streaming down her cheeks, and she barely registered the fact that she was being pulled back from the breach, ushered back away from the corridor to safety.

All she could see, all she could hear were the scenes from her childhood that she had tried so hard to forget, mixed with the present attack on the _Enterprise_ and the destruction of Vulcan. She couldn't tell which was which. It was more terrible than anything she had ever known, and what made it worse was that there no way she could escape.

Danielle's horror was but a microcosm of what every crewmember was experiencing. As the _Enterprise_ turned away from the battle, and warped away from danger of being pulled into a black hole, the planet they had come to save was swallowed. Vulcan ceased to exist. It was nothing short of an apocalypse from which none of them would ever be able to escape again.


	15. Aftershocks

Aftershocks:

The _Enterprise_ was at warp to a course unknown. The first few hours after the destruction of Vulcan were spent by almost everyone aboard the ship in a silent, uncertain haze. There seemed to be no goal beyond getting as far away and as fast as possible. But, no amount of speed or distance would have been enough to distract the crew from the horror of what they had witnessed.

The crew and the survivors were simply trying to come to terms with what they had witnessed. But such a task was next to impossible. The only real thing which any of them could do in order to maintain their hold on sanity, was to focus doggedly on the task at hand. Every available space and resource was being used to treat the Vulcan refugees. There had been billions of lives on Vulcan; that number had probably been reduced to a mere few thousand. Of all the witnesses to the apocalypse, the survivors were the ones who were bearing the brunt of the pain.

Even for a species built on the suppression of emotions through logic, there was only so much that this form of protection could do. There was nothing logical about the destruction of their home planet.

Sickbay was the beating heart of the effort to bring back the most injured and scared back to at least a functioning level. Even shifting through the inured in order to triage them was a monumental task. Those who were unconscious were in an almost enviable position, since they were separated from the physical and mental trauma.

Danielle felt next to useless. There was only so much she could to help. Eventually, she concentrated her efforts in the area of Sick Bay where the Vulcan children were being cared for. There hadn't been any chance as yet to identify the parents who might still be alive. In the meantime, the children were left on their own.

Many of them were still in a state of silent shock, or weeping quietly. She couldn't help them entirely, but for a few hours, she made an endless round of the beds, and soothed the feelings where she was able to help a little.

It was in the midst of this work that Ambassador Sarek found her. When she saw him, she came over to him, and he said, "I understand you've been here for quite some time, ministering to our young people. You have my thanks."

"I wasn't expecting anyone to recognize it. I was only doing the right thing for them." said Danielle, "I've been a child in the midst of a violence, and I didn't have many people to help me. I wouldn't want to leave them in the same predicament."

"I can assure you, your compassion is appreciated." He looked over children, speculatively. "Now that some of our adults are being cleared by your medical staff, they should be able to begin helping the more severely traumatized. They will most likely need to perform mind melds so that the memories of what they have experienced are contained."

"And once they're older, you'll remove those shields and guide them through the emotions with meditation and logic, right?"

Sarek raised an eyebrow, a classic sign of surprise amongst Vulcans. "Yes, Dr. Kirk. i was not aware you knew our customs when it came to easing trauma felt by our children."

"What about the orphans?"

Sarek shook his head. "The Council has yet to meet in order to discuss that issue. We will most likely need to put them into the care of adults amongst the survivors willing to take on the responsibility."

"If I would make a suggestion, and I don't mean to impose, but there are already some children who have grown somewhat attached to each other. Try to keep them together. It would probably be the greatest comfort they could ask for right now."

Sarek nodded, after a moment of consideration. "I shall take your suggestion into account, Dr. Kirk." With an almost abrupt shift in tone and expression, he continued, "My son, Spock, wanted to see you, along with Dr. McCoy. He wants all the senior staff to discuss the events of today."

Sarek spoke with the measured calm of an elder Vulcan. Yet, there was a heaviness in his voice that Danielle couldn't miss. She nodded, and hurried off to find Spock. She was grateful to have something to do. She found Spock entering Sick Bay. When he saw her, he came forward ad greeted her. "Dr. Kirk, I see that my father relayed my message to you."

"Yes," she said, as she fell in step beside him, and they began to head to the turbolift.

"Now that all the senior staff has been cleared of injuries, it is an ideal time to consider what we have witnessed, and what our next course of action should be."

They stepped onto the turbolift and began their journey up to the bridge. "I understand that you have inherited the duties of Chief Councilor."

"You don't need to remind me, but yes."

"In that case, what would you say is the emotional state of the crew at the moment?"

Danielle sighed and shook her head. "That's a difficult question to answer. We're all in shock, but once that wears off, I believe everyone is going to start behaving differently from each other."

"I see," said Spock, who didn't seem to like the answer, "I believe I should make it mandatory that the senior staff report to you once this meeting is over."

"A wise decision." said Danielle, "I assume that you'll be the first to meet."

Spock looked at her, a rather confused expression on his face. "Why would you deem that necessary?"

"Because your home planet was destroyed. You lost your mother, and you're in a position of command. Forgive me for being blunt, Commander, but those are the logical facts."

"I would never have you say anything other than the truth. However, I have already made a total evaluation of myself according to Starfleet standards, and I fall within normal parameters."

Danielle reached out and paused the turbolift. She then faced Spock with crossed arms and said, "Spock, I think we can both agree that these are far from the 'normal' circumstances."

"You are correct." Spock admitted, "There are no parameters for such a situation. However, that makes it all the important that we fall back on what we can measure."

"Spock, come on, you know me. After all the times you needed my advice on your personal relationship with Uhura, you know how I operate. You don't have to do the bravado act with me."

"It's not an act, Doctor. If I were truly being ruled by improper emotions. I would have immediately ordered that the ship go after the _Narada_ , in an illogical quest for revenge. For right now, I am planning to follow the final command which was given to me by Captain Pike to meet up with fleet in the Laurentian system."

"You make a convincing argument, Commander." said Danielle, after a moment's thought, "But you'll also have to excuse my being blunt if I say I am not entirely convinced. One decision taken in the face of an event like this isn't the best way to determine your mental state. I'll still need to see you at some point before we meet up with the rest of the fleet in the Laurentian system."

For just a moment, there was the slightest expression of uncertainty on Spock's face, as though he clearly hadn't expected Danielle of all people to question his command. It was also in such a manner that there was no logical way for him to deny her the request.

"Very well, Dr. Kirk." said Spock.

Danielle nodded and started the turbolift once again. It was not the answer which she would have liked, but Spock was right in one thing: there were no specific protocols to be followed in the event of an entire planet being destroyed. She, along with everyone else, were still trying to know just what they should be doing.

* * *

Tensions on the bridge were running high. No one on the senior staff had been prepared to even take command, let alone lead in a disaster of such unmitigated proportions. They were all more than capable, some of them the best in their fields, but that didn't mean that they were even close to having all of the answers.

However, a great deal of that tension arose from the fact that both Jim and Spock were on the bridge together. They might have tried to forge a truce in the light of Vulcan's destruction, but the wildly divergent ideas they had on how to proceed put the continued survival of that truce in grave doubt. This was not at all helped by the fact that Jim was sitting in the Captain's chair as though he belonged there.

"Lieutenant, have you confirmed that Nero is headed for Earth?" Spock asked of Uhura, doing his best to ignore Jim's silent insolence, with little success.

"Their trajectory suggests no other destination, Captain." said Uhura.

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

"Earth may be his next stop, but we have to assume every Federation planet's a target." said Jim.

"Out of the chair." Spock ordered, somehow managing to sound both exasperated and totally impassive at the same time.

"Yes, agreed." said Chekov, "But why didn't they destroy us?"

"Why would they? Why waste the weapons? We obviously weren't a threat." Sulu stated, slightly glum.

"No, that is not it." said Spock, "He said he wanted me to see something. The destruction of my home planet."

Ashley had been standing a little behind the Captain's Chair, and when Jim obeyed Spock's orders to vacate the chair (though he seemed to pause for just a split second before doing so, just to see how long he could push Spock's buttons), she moved over to stand beside him. "But what makes you so special? No offense, Commander, but there had to have been other Vulcans aboard the Starfleet ships he blew to smithereens. Why would he care so much that _you_ saw Vulcan destroyed?"

"And, speaking of which, how the hell did they do that?" McCoy asked, "Where did the Romulans get that kind of weaponry?"

"I can't say why how they were able to destroy Vulcan, but I think I know why he singled you out, Commander." said Danielle, "I don't know how, but he knew you."

"How?" Sulu asked, "The Commander himself said that he didn't know Nero."

Danielle looked hard and meaningfully at Spock. "You saw his face, Spock. He hated you, beyond any limits of reason. And I believe the reason for that hatred stemmed from something that you hadn't done yet."

The implication of that statement took a moment to sink in for all of them. None of them were entirely sure how to put it into words, but a piece of the puzzle was starting to fall into place.

"I believe your assessment is correct, Doctor." said Spock, "The engineering comprehension necessary to artificially create a black hole may suggest the answer. Such technology could theoretically be manipulated to create a tunnel through space time."

McCoy hadn't understood a word of this. "Dammit, man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist. Are you suggesting they're actually from the future?"

"That would explain their advanced weaponry and technology." said Ashley.

"Ashley, you're actually buying this?" McCoy asked, in disbelief.

"You honestly think that having the technical capability of destroying a planet is something that the Romulans would be able to keep secret for very long?" Ashley asked, "Nero also said that he wasn't acting on behalf of the Empire. As crazy as it might seem, a vengeful Romulan Captain with a grudge against Commander Spock, is really the only theory that explains everything."

"She is right, Dr. Mccoy." said Spock, "If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"How poetic." muttered McCoy.

"Has to be, he didn't come up with that him on his own." said Ashley.

"Than what would an angry, future Romulan want with Captain Pike." Jim asked.

"My father is one of the senior starship captains in the fleet." said Ashley, "He knows details about Starfleet defenses which Nero could find useful if Earth is his next target, which seems likely."

"Captain PIke would never talk." said Jim.

"I like to think that he wouldn't." said Ashley, "But there is only so much torture that one person can take, and somehow, I have a feeling that this Nero has ways and means that we haven't heard of. It might take a little while, but he could very well succeed."

"And if Nero has any of that information, it would make any attempt to attack earth a lot easier." mused Sulu.

That seemed to be all the discussion that Jim needed. He could already see what needed to be done. "What we need to do is catch up to that ship, disable it, take it over and get Pike back."

Unfortunately, this plan did not meet with a resounding vote of approval. Everyone, even McCoy, looked at Jim as though he had gone completely insane. Spock summed up the thoughts of everyone on the bridge as he replied, "Captain Pike left us with standing orders to rendezvous with the fleet on the other side of the quadrant. We're technologically outmatched in every way. A rescue attempt would be illogical."

Ashley had been doing everything in her power to be patient with Spock. She had tried her best to follow his orders as she knew her father would want her to. But this was going to far. "My father gave us those orders when he didn't know that Vulcan would be destroyed. The entire situation has changed."

"Lieutenant Pike, please remain calm. I am afraid that your emotional state regarding your father's situation is blinding you to the most appropriate course of action."

"Oh well, excuse me for being worried about my own flesh and blood."

"And what sort of plan do you have to rescue Captain Pike once we catch up with him?" Spock questioned.

"I hadn't quite thought that far ahead yet. But, you don't really seem to have much of a plan yourself."

"You are out of line, Lieutenant."

The crew on the bridge were shifting uncomfortably. The tension between these three very strong personalities was growing even worse with each passing moment. In an attempt to offer an answer that no one could argue with, Chekov piped up. "Nero's ship would have to drop out of warp for us to overtake him."

Jim, though, was not yet willing to give up on the idea. "Then what about assigning assigning engineering crews to try and boost our warp gear?"

Spock already had a logical answer to this objection, which he pronounced at the exact same time as Jim, effectively neutralizing him as any sort of threat to his command. "Remaining power and crew are being used to repair radiation leaks on the lower decks."

Jim was practically growling with frustrated rage. "Okay, all right, there's got to be some way…" He was beginning to realize that he was fighting a losing battle, and if there was anything Danielle knew about Jim, it was that he hated losing.

"We must gather with the rest Starfleet to balance the terms of our next engagement." Spock finished with a note of finality.

"You make it sound like we're going to be meeting him for a civilized cup of tea." said Ashley, "Nero's ship was able to tear apart a small fleet of starships without so much as scratching his own hull, without even mentioning that he can apparently destroy whole planets while doing that. What sort of plan do you think you'll be able to come up with when we catch up with Starfleet, assuming we could even reach them in time to make any sort of difference? In case you've forgotten, our long range communications are down. We can't warn anybody about what just happened. By the time we get to the rest of the fleet, Nero might have already destroyed earth, and who knows how many other planets along the way."

"She's right, Spock." said Jim, "There won't be a next engagement. But the time we've 'gathered' it will be too late."

"Commander, I may not be in favor of an all out assault, but it would be wise to consider of all of our options." said Danielle, who could see the point of both her brother and Ashley, but could see that they were going about it completely the wrong way. "This is hardly a typical enemy we're facing. Nero has a distinct advantage over us: time. Time to not only get his ship where he wants it to be faster than we can stop him, but also the fact he himself is outside of time. He doesn't belong in the present moment, and you can be sure that he'll use that to his greatest advantage."

"You say he's from the future, knows what's going to happen, then the logical thing is to do something unpredictable." Jim concurred.

"You're assuming that Nero knows how events are predicted to unfold. To the contrary, Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the _USS Kelvin_ , culminating in the events of today. Thereby creating a new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party."

"An alternate reality." said Uhura, who seemed to be filling in what they were all thinking.

"Precisely, whatever lives we might have lived, our destinies have changed." He looked over at Sulu, and without further debate ordered him, "Mr. Sulu, plot a course to the Laurentian system, warp factor three."

And that, Danielle knew, was it. Spock had made his decision, and much like Jim, he seemed totally unwilling to consider compromising. Had it been any other situation, Danielle might have laughed. Jim and Spock weren't opposites, she was beginning to realize, they were alike, in all the perfectly different ways. Danielle only hoped that Spock's inflexibility on the letter of the law would not become his undoing.

But at least Danielle was prepared to follow orders she didn't agree with. She realize that a united front amongst the command staff was essential to the morale of the crew. Unfortunately, neither Jim nor Ashley were willing to afford Spock the same respect.

"Spock, don't do that." Jim insisted, "Running back to the rest of the fleet for a, a, a confab is a massive waste of time."

"The orders issued by Captain Pike when he left…"

Spock had touched a sore spot by bringing up Captain Pike. Ashley was still worried sick about him, and Spock's failure to even address the fact that he could be in mortal danger had set her firmly on Jim's side against the Commander.

"Are you forgetting that he also gave us orders to go back and get hm!" She demanded, "Do you think that my father made you Captain because he just liked you? He counted on your loyalty and duty. How can you possibly betray him when he needs you now more than ever?"

"If you mean to imply that this is easy for me, I can assure you that it's not, Lieutenant." said Spock, with just the barest hint of an edge in his tone. "However, you are in greater danger of betraying him yourself by how easily you are allowing your emotions to cloud your judgement."

"Yes, my emotions are a little on edge now, Spock." Ashley spat, "Not all of us can be so calm in the face of an overwhelming personal loss, like say the death of a parent or the loss of a home planet. Not all of us have the luxury of turning off our emotions whenever it's convenient. "

Ashley was treading an incredibly dangerous line. Perhaps Spock was right, and she was too lost in her anger against Spock to realize just how much her own words were hurting him. Perhaps, if she had stopped for just an instant, she would have seen the slight cracks in that smooth mask of a logical vulcan, seeing even the barest hint of a person who had lost almost everything. "This is exactly why Captain Pike never would have entrusted you with the responsibility of command." Spock responded, his voice cal and icy, which honestly cut Ashley deeper then if he had started to scream. "You are selfishly think that you know what is best for every single member of this crew? If your father were here right now, he would be utterly ashamed of you."

Spock could not have said anything this which enraged Ashley more. Her hands were balled into fists, sharp grey eyes staring at Spock with an expression that was bordering on hatred. And those fw crewmembers who were making the mistake of standing near Ashley wisely moved back a few paces, when they saw that the area around her was beginning to grow cold with ice.

Jim was jumping to Ashley's defense, adding his own voice of dissent to a situation that was now completely beyond his ability to influence. "Every second we waste, Spock, Nero's getting closer to his next target."

"That is correct and why I am instructing you to accept the fact that I alone-"

"You alone!" said Ashey, with cold sarcasm, "Are you willing to shoulder the responsibility of all the lives that will be lost because of your delay?"

"I will not allow us to go backwards, instead of hunting Nero down!"

The voices of all three were coming one of top of the other, creating a cacophony in which it was impossible to hear anything resembling sense. Indeed, Danielle and Leonard tried to bring Jim and Ashley to heel, but not even their voices could penetrate the conflict.

In the end, however, it made no difference. Spock was still in command, and that was a major advantage which he had over any opposition that Jim and Ashley could muster. And he had heard more then enough from them. If he wanted to maintain order, they needed to be removed from the ears of anyone else.

"Security, escort them out."

Fuming with impotent rage, Jim and Ashley each found themselves suddenly flanked by two security officers, who roughly grabbed them by the shoulders and began to escort them out. However, jim and Ashley were equally stubborn. Even with all the odds against them and no support, they weren't willing to give up on the conviction that they were right.

In the blink of an eye, Jim had twisted out of the grasp of his escort. With a cry of surprise, the officers tried to gain control of him, but he was desperate and fast. He knocked one aside easily, and struggled with other, trying to wrestle himself free.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Ashley allowed the icy condensention which had been forming around her take a more solid shape. A powerful blast of water slammed into the officer on her left, sending him crashing into the wall, coughing and spluttering. The other guard was ready for resistance, and taken an even firmer hold of her, causing Ashley to struggle and punch with something less than her usual grace.

The scuffle happened so fast that no one would have been able to prevent Jim and Ashley's poor decision making. However, it was doomed to failure from the very start. Jim, while wrestling to get free of the one guard, had made the mistake of turning his back on Spock, who calmly walked up behind him and delivered a Vulcan neck pinch, which effectively put Jim out cold.

Ashley no doubt would have gone to help him but there was the matter of the security officer she had blasted with water. He was none too pleased to have been power soaked with freezing water, and had no reservations about stunning her with his phaser.

Spock knew it wouldn't stay that way. They were troublemakers, and the greatest threat to his leadership. The problems they would create would lead to delays, and delays were something he couldn't afford.

There was only one choice open to him. It was, admittedly, an extreme solution. But it was the only logical way. In order to avoid the problems Jim and Ashley presented, it was necessary to put them and the _Enterprise_ as far away from each other as possible.

Looking over at the surrounding security officers, he ordered with a finality that would have been impossible to fight against. "Get them off this ship."

Leonard and Danielle were both stunned by what they had just heard, as was everyone else. But Danielle couldn't bring herself to say anything as she watched her brother and Ashley being carried from the bridge. This was an instance she had always feared: that one day, Jim would do something so stupid, so insane that she wouldn't be able to help him get out of it.

Jim and Ashley had gotten themselves into this mess. Danielle knew that only they could get themselves out of it.

* * *

Please, read and review.


	16. Missed Opportunities

**Happy thanksgiving! I don't know if they have thanksgiving in the future, but I certainly hope so. Meanwhile, back in the present, enjoy this chapter.**

Missed Opportunities:

It didn't take long for members of the crew to start coming to Danielle. The numb shock was starting to wear off, and people were starting to come to terms with the horror of witnessing Vulcan's destruction.

The crew was made up of mostly fresh recruits from the Academy. Some of them, like Chekov, were struggling to align Starfleet's mission of peaceful exploration with the genocide of an entire planet. It was especially difficult for Chekov, as he kept blaming himself for failing to save everyone, particularly Spock's mother.

Bewildered, uncertain, guilt-ridden. Danielle was fairly certain that a lot of newcomers to active service aboard a starship, would be feeling a combination of all those things.

For the more seasoned officers, those emotions were felt no less keenly, though in different ways. From them, it was mostly the idea that they should have been able to do more.

Sulu, who had been on the planet's surface and nearly fallen to his death more than a few times, was in a state of recriminating shock. He should have been faster, more aware of what was actually happening.

Innocence shattered, experience proven to be useless; nothing that she heard was easy to resolve, and the ultimate question of why which lurked behind every meeting was one she was certain no one would have been able to answer.

The consequences of missed opportunities was one which Danielle understood all too well. She carried her own scars from such moments which had never fully healed.

Danielle's relationship with her mother had never been easy. Ever since the death of her father, things had only gotten worse with time. Winona had chosen to bury herself in work, and had left her children in the dubious care of their uncle. Nonetheless, Winona had latched onto Jim and George as the objects of her maternal care. Though they might make questionable decisions, in the end, they could do no real wrong. Danielle was the one who received all of her mother's often painful criticisms.

Danielle loved her mother, and Winona loved her. But if there was anything which Danielle had learned in her many years studying psychiatry, it was those that were closest by blood could inflict the most terrible and lasting wounds.

Danielle and Jim had both left Iowa without telling anyone, not even their family. Their uncle had been the only one in Iowa at the time, and neither of them had really cared what he thought. However, their mother, who had been off-planet, had only sent them a few messages since they had started their studies. None of them indicated what she truly thought of their actions.

The first time they saw each other, Danielle was secretly dreading the event. She couldn't help but feel that Winona would blame her for some imagined slight or injury. The first few days, she was almost hopeful. Winona was solicitous and even praised Jim for how far he had come in such a short time. Danielle had never needed any praise for herself. Jim was the one who had always needed to know that he was succeeding (that's what she told herself, at any rate. Perhaps she had been lying to herself on that score longer than she had thought).

However, the first time that Winona and Danielle spoke to each other alone, every unspoken fear and resentment that existed between mother and daughter finally broke to the surface.

It was while they were having breakfast, with Jim nowhere in sight to defend her, that Winona dropped an unexpected accusation. "I'm rather surprised at how you handled Jim's decision to come to the Academy. In fact, from what he told me, he wouldn't have seriously considered it if you hadn't so strongly suggested it."

Danielle felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. "I'm afraid I don't follow you, mom."

Winona's expression was serious, and disapproving. "Danielle, how could you have encouraged Jim in this idea? I thought that you were more responsible than this, but I am disappointed in you, again."

Danielle did her best to not respond with her first reaction. "I didn't encourage Jim to do anything, mom. He made his own choices when it came to this."

"But you should have tried to stop him, or at least made him think about the decision. Instead, you just let him run off and enlist for something that could potentially be very risky."

"If he had waited, he would have backed out, especially if he had found out you would disapprove, as I can see now you clearly do."

"I don't disapprove, but he at least needed to know what he was getting into. There are so many dangers, any one of them could get him killed."

"Mom," said Danielle, trying to be reasonable, "You've seen what the last few years have done to Jim. He was heading towards a downward spiral. He needed to commit himself to something, or he would have ended up in a terrible place. Do you really want another son to run off without any sort of plan?"

"I want a son who's alive!" Winona cried, for just a moment, her real fear coming through. A few people from the tables around them shot them glances that were by turns confused or annoyed. Winona tried to lower her voice, but the intensity in her eyes only seemed to grow sharper. "I can't let another man in our family die because of Starfleet. I've always counted on you to protect Jim, Danielle. You should have done a better job."

There were many things that Danielle would have been able to hear from her mother, many things that she could have endured no matter how hurtful. But the accusation that she was somehow a failure when it came to protecting her brother was too much. All the anger and frustration that she kept buried inside of her came bubbling to the surface and she gave into it.

"I have done a good job, mom. Actually, I've done a damn good job considering you were never there to help me."

"You know that I had to work, Danielle. I couldn't just stand by and let myself become consumed by grief."

"You were hiding from it." Danielle said, heatedly. "You got as far as you could, so you wouldn't have to face us. You left us with someone who didn't care about our well-being, who ridiculed us and put us down every chance he got."

"How many times have I told you that all you had to do was tell me, and I would have taken steps to protect you, and Jim. But you always seemed determined to keep me out of these things. Danielle, you never confided in me."

Danielle couldn't help but laugh in disbelief. It was the only thing she could do besides cry, and that was something she refused to do. "I tried, mom. I _tried_. But you never listened to me. So, I finally stopped trying. And if you want to blame me for pushing Jim to do the one thing that would make him grow into a man, then I'll gladly welcome the accusation. At least then I'll know you've noticed, and that I've made some sort of impact."

With that, she got to her feet, and started to gather her things. "Where are you going?" Winona asked.

"I should think it was obvious." Danielle snapped, "I'm leaving, since I'm such an obvious disappointment to you. I would hate to make you any more uncomfortable than I already have."

Her mother tried to call her back. Or maybe she didn't. Danielle didn't hear, and she didn't care at that point. She just wanted to be anywhere that her mother was not.

She only got a few blocks before the tears started to sting her eyes. She was so frustrated that she wanted to scream. She was so used to listening to other people's' problems. Now, all she wanted was someone who would listen to her.

But, where could she confide? Certainly not Jim. He who would most likely take her side, but still wouldn't be able to give her any practical advice. Ashley, her best friend, since coming to the Academy would only angrily denounce Winona, and that was hardly what she wanted or needed.

Running down the list of her friends, there was really only one person she knew who would be able to give her exactly what she needed most.

She just wasn't sure if he would want to come and listen to her family drama. Leonard already had so many thing if his own to deal with. However, the only way she would ever know was if she asked. She sent him a quick message on her communicator. She didn't have to wait five minutes before she received a reply telling her that he would meet her wherever she wanted. (That was something new to her. She wasn't used to other people just dropping whatever they might have been doing to help her.)

So, she gave him a place to meet her, and found herself thinking the very ridiculous thing thought that she was almost happy to see him, regardless of the situation.

* * *

Leonard hadn't known what to expect when he had received Danielle's message, only that she had sounded like she needed someone desperately. He hadn't hesitated about going to help her. It simply felt right to do so.

He was meeting her in a park that bordered bay, the Golden Gate visible beyond the tree line. But all Leonard could see was Danielle, on one of the park benches by the foot path. Her face had a tightly etched expression of pain, and there were tell-tale signs that she had been crying. He suddenly felt a clenching in his heart, as if he knew that he would have done anything to comfort her. The sensation was unfamiliar to him, and as soon as he felt it, he tried to shove it away. Such thinking would not help Danielle at all right now.

He sat down next to her, not offering a greeting or asking what was wrong. She only gave him a brief glance in acknowledgement, before looking down once more. There were a few moments of silence, before Leonard asked, "So, you need to talk about our mom, I take it?"

That was apparently all the invitation which Danielle needed. She immediately told him about the fight. And by the time she had finished, more tears of anger were starting to gather in her eyes. "Oh, Leonard, I can't take it anymore, I just can't! I've tried and tried and tried! She's always finding something new to criticize me about. I'm almost ready to give up on her altogether."

She finally stopped to take a breath, and Leonard stared at her in wonder. "How long have you been keepin' all that bottled inside you?"

Danielle's mouth dropped open, and she couldn't make a sound for a moment. It appeared as though this was the first time that the thought had ever occurred to her. "I… well, I've… never actually told anyone this before."

Leonard shook his head and said, "And you still turned out as decent as you have? That's… Well, I'd like to say amazing, but you might think the compliment was to high."

He had been trying to make her smile again, but what caught Danielle's attention was the expression of intense sympathy and understanding in Leonard's eyes, as though he wanted to take everything that had ever caused her pain, and protect her from it with every fiber of his being. That look alone made her feel breathless, giddy and strangely light-hearted.

That was really what made her smile. Everything like that had been snatched from her, and she knew that she didn't want to let it go.

"You're the first person I've ever been able to talk to about this." She admitted, "I mean, I've mentioned it to Jim, and he's always supported me, but…"

"I know, there's only so much that a man can say against his own mama." Leonard took a deep a breath. "Well, what do you need from me? I can probably conjure up something suitable when it comes to sympathy or advice."

Danielle actually laughed a little. "Honestly, I don't know what I needed when I called you. Perhaps I just wanted someone to listen to me who wouldn't have a bias against either side. The hard thing is that I almost understand what mom has been going through all these years. Ever since my dad died, it's been hard for her to fully heal. I don't know if she ever will."

"I know how that kind of grief can eat at you, makes you say and do all sorts of things which you would never have considered doing otherwise."

"Are you talking about your father?" Almost immediately, Danielle turned a light shade of red and turned away, looking a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I looked at your profile after we met, and I just noticed that you lost your father and-"

"You looked me up, huh?" said Leonard, actually feeling himself smile, a little. "I can't say that I'm all that surprised, considerin' the shape I was in when we ran into each other. You probably wanted to make sure that I wasn't some crazy psycho."

"I actually still think you're crazy; you have to be if you've lasted rooming with my brother for this long." said Danielle, "But, I never meant to seem like I was prying. There was honestly not a lot of information that I could find."

"I'm not surprised." said Leonard, "It wasn't... it wasn't anything that was particularly noteworthy. Dad died of a rare neurological disease, one that caused him a lot of pain for years. There was no cure, and there wasn't even any medicine that he could be given in order to relieve that pain. His system just absorbed it too fast."

A part of Leonard was surprised that he was being so open about the circumstances of his father's death. He never spoke of it, and did everything he could to avoid the topic with either Jim or Danielle. Even now, there was a whisper of fear at the back of his mind that he wasn't quite able to silence. But, there was something about Danielle's presence that made him want to open up.

Perhaps, just as he had seen how much she needed someone to understand the challenges she could tell to no one else, maybe his own secrets were starting to weigh him down as well. Perhaps, he needed Danielle even more than she needed him.

"Eventually, it got to be to much for him, and he just... gave up. I took it really hard. I kept thinking that there was more I should have been able to do. Up until the last, I kept insisting that there had to be something which we hadn't tried. What made it worse was that only a few weeks after his passing, there was a cure found for the very disease he had been suffering from. If he had just held out a little bit longer, he would still be here right now."

Danielle had been the one who needed comfort when he had first arrived. Yet, when she heard his story, Leonard was amazed to see that she still had more than enough compassion in her heart to offer him some of the same comfort. "Leonard, I'm so sorry. That must have been terrible for you."

The look of understanding, the sheer desire to try and help him through the pain of his memories in her soft blue eyes warmed him almost as much as it made him feel guilty for not telling her the complete truth. What would she think of him? Would she understand, or would she be disgusted for what he had done to bring about his father's death? After all, it wasn't as though he had been a simple witness; he had caused his dad's death the moment he shut off his life support.

"Like I said, I took it really hard. Of course, it had to happen at the exact same time when my marriage with Margaret was going downhill. I hate to say it, but I probably harried things along by my behavior. In the end, there was a lot that I wanted to say to my dad that I never got the chance to say. I would hate for you and your mom to have to go through the same thing."

Danielle made a sound of disgust. "I know, I know. I don't want to alienate my mother completely, but… how do I also not give her the power to wound me so deeply? I can't forget what she's done to me, Leonard. I don't know how to forgive."

"You think I've forgiven my ex after all this time?" Leonard asked, wryly, "I haven't, not by a long shot. I have to start fresh every day, and some days, I make more progress than othears. You should know forgiveness isn't about acceptin' what others did to you right. It's not lettin' that resentment become the only thing you think about."

"It's a process, I know." said Danielle, after a moment. "I've said as much to so many people. You'd think I'd be able to follow my own advice better."

Unconsciously, Leonard reached out and took her hand, the warmth and reassurance flooding through his touch into the very nerves of her body. "It seems to me that the very fact you're aware of that, means that you're on the right track."

It seemed the strangest place in the world for Danielle and Leonard to finally acknowledge the depth and intensity of the connection between them. They were both aware of how broken and lonely they were, carrying the heavy burdens of past mistakes and disappointed expectations. They should have known better than anyone just how much of a risk came from opening your heart to another human being.

And yet, on that bench in the park, they were both realizing just how tired they were of trying to be strong and alone. For whatever reason, they both came to the realization that they were with the one person who knew exactly what they were going through, and accepted them despite all the additional baggage. More importantly, they stopped trying to hide how much they needed and wanted that connection, and simply accepted it.

The silence stretched out between them for several seconds, and they had both seemed to drift closer together until they were mere centimeters from kissing. And Leonard, whose first instinct only a few days ago would have been to abruptly pull away and clamp his heart shut, instead realized that kissing Danielle would probably be the best thing he could ever do.

Whether the same thoughts were going through her head, he wasn't entirely sure. The next moment, though, he found himself kissing her, one of his arms going to cradle the back of her head, while his other went around her waist to pull her even closer to him. He wanted her close to him, he realized. Despite everything he had tried to do keep her at arm's length, he was so tired of doing it. He was simply exhausted at the thought of being alone.

He was in love with Danielle. It was time to stop denying it. Facing up to it was probably the only way he could keep his sanity.

When they came apart, she didn't move away from him, which he had to assume was a good thing. He could accept that he loved her, but that wouldn't make any difference if she didn't feel the same. "Look, uh, Danielle, I don't want to presume anything, or… if you think I'm being too forward…"

Danielle actually started to laugh. "Leonard, if I thought you were being too forward, I would have never let you get this far."

Leonard let out a breath he didn't even know he's been holding for the last five minutes. "You don't know how glad i am to hear you say that."

"What? That I feel the same way you do?" asked Danielle, with a further smile. "Is it really so hard to believe?"

"Come on, Danielle," said Leonard, "I'm a divorcee, with an unstable ex and a daughter to care for. You're… well, you're beautiful, smart, kind.. I don't know what you could possibly see in someone like me."

Danielle put a hand on his cheek, and made him look her in the eye. "If we're going to make this work, Leonard, I'm not going to hear you talk about yourself that way."

"What is 'this' going to be called, anyway?"

Danielle gave out a small chirp of laughter. "I believe it's called, dating. I hear that a lot of people are doing it these days. It seems to be working pretty well for a lot of people, maybe we could try it ourselves."

Leonard found himself smiling. He felt his heart swelling with a contentment he had not known in a long time. Tentatively he put his arm around her, and pulled her into him. She leaned into him, and he couldn't help but notice just how easily they fit together.

They weren't able to say that they loved each other. Perhaps they were aware of it in their most private minds, but they couldn't come to speak it out loud just yet. Still, for two who had such deep scars that they kept hidden from the world. What had happened between them today was a major step forward.

Perhaps an even bigger revelation was that they knew they wouldn't be able to go back, nor did they want to.

* * *

 ** **Please read and review.****


	17. Frozen

Frozen:

By the time Ashley regained consciousness, she found herself ensconced in what appeared to be one man space pod. It was cramped and uncomfortable, but her first sensation upon becoming conscious was the bone-chilling cold. She wouldn't have needed to be especially attuned to extremes of temperature because of her unique gift to know that she was somewhere which was very, very cold.

She took a moment to inwardly curse that stupid Vulcan for throwing her and Jim off the ship. For a supposedly logical and rational species, this course of action unnecessarily extreme. If they had violated that many protocols (which, all right, maybe they had gone a bit to far in that aspect, as Ashley recalled the sequence of events), the proper consequence for those actions was the brig, not getting kicked off the ship because the acting captain felt the need to throw a temper tantrum.

However, remembering that Jim had suffered the same fate as herself, and was still out there somewhere, and possibly in bad shape, she set about trying to open the pod and get out. After a few minutes, she scrambled out of the pod, only to find that the planet's surface consisted of nothing but ice in every direction. She was literally standing on a vast snowball, with huge columns of ice rising up to the sky, which was almost as white as the surface of the planet itself, with only the barest hint of blue to be seen. It was nearly impossible to tell where the earth ended and the sky began.

Surveying these somewhat unhelpful surroundings, she suddenly caught sight of something that stood out in stark contrast to the endless fields of white. A large, gaping hole had been carved into the ice, by something hitting the surface at high impact. Knowing that was where Jim must have landed, she rushed towards the precipice of the hole. Dropping to her knees, she looked down, her suspicions when she saw the pod lying at a haphazard angle. It appeared as though Jim's landing had been far less smooth than her own.

"Jim! Jim!" She called, as she threw herself down on the ice and looked down into the hole.

She was relieved when she saw Jim below her, just emerging from the pod. "Ashley?" He said, as he glanced up to see her. "Are you all right?"

"A bit roughed up, but fine. What about you?"

"I'm fine, I think. Except for my shoulder. That damn Vulcan sure packs a hell of a punch, and without even throwing one. That's not fair."

"Hold on, I think I can help get you out of there."

"That would be nice. I have many gifts, but ice climbing like this isn't one of them."

Ashley focused, forming the icy walls into somewhat serviceable handholds for Jim to haul himself up the wall of the pit. She helped him over the lip of the pit, and he shivered when the first blast of cold wind hit him square him in the face. "Oh, great." He said, as he took in the sight before him. "He couldn't have dropped us on a nice tropical planet?"

"No, that would actually be polite." said Ashley, "Where are exactly? Do you know?"

"Somewhere called Delta Vega, according to the computer in the pod. It's a Class M planet, but 'unsafe'."

"Of course, it is." muttered Ashley, "What other good news did the computer have for us?"

"That we're supposed to stay put and wait for rescue." Jim repeated sarcastically.

"Right, and during that time, we could probably freeze to death, even assuming that anyone knows we're here at all. And if we move away from here, we could still die from exposure."

"You're certainly a ray of sunshine in times like this, aren't you?" said Jim. "The way I see it, we don't have many options. I, for one, don't really want to hang around here and just wait for a rescue party that might never come."

"Agreed, but where exactly are we supposed to go?"

"There's a Starfleet base within walking distance of here." said Jim, "It might take us awhile to get there, especially considering the weather we're working with."

"Unfortunately, it really doesn't sound like we have that many options. Let's break out the parkas and boots. We're going to be doing a little bit of hiking."

Delta Vega was a small, barren ice planet a few systems over Vulcan. It was so small, in fact, it would have been better classified as a moon. There was nothing really all that valuable about Delta Vega. The best that could be said of it was that, at one point, it had possessed a small concentration of natural minerals.

Starfleet had long ago mined everything that they could from the planet itself, and were now faced with the problem of what to do with the tiny base they had established there. For the present moment, the best solution they could come up with manning it with a skeletal crew and leaving it at that until something better came along.

Another phenomenon which Delta Vega possessed was a reputation for really bad snow storms. These could come up out of nowhere, and last anywhere from hours to days. They were always accompanied by howling winds, crystals of ice that felt like they were cutting into the skin and extreme cold. It was one of these storms that Jim and Ashley had the misfortune to encounter. Though they were insulated with every scrap of clothing they could find in the pods, it was still not enough for them to escape the feeling of intense cold.

"Ashley, I don't suppose you could do something with that super duper fire ability you have to keep us warm?" Jim asked, as they walked through the howling wind.

"Jim, just because I can summon fireballs out of thin air doesn't mean I can argue against a planet's biology. The air is to cold for to me to get the molecules to cooperate in getting warm, let alone hot enough to create the chemical reaction I need for fire. I would need some outside source to draw upon first."

Jim grumbled about this for a minute, before whipping out his tricolor and turning it to record mode. "Oh, you're not doing that again?" said Ashley.

"I just want to be sure that there is a record of what really happened aboard the _Enterprise_ , should they find our perfectly preserved corpses underneath all this snow."

"Oh, that's a cheery thought. Come on, Jim, the only thing you want to do is complain."

"I am not complaining, Ashley."

"Oh, go ahead, record your stupid log. Just don't expect me to contribute anything."

"Fine, I don't want your contribution anyway." He turned his attention to the tricorder. "Lieutenant's log, supplemental: I'm preparing a testimonial for my Starfleet court martial, assuming there's still a Starfleet left."

Ashley, not wanting to hear anything of Jim's pathetic recital, had gone forward a few feet to try and let the wind drown out his words. However, as she did so, she thought that she heard something. She couldn't see anything, but the sound, a cold, growling sound came back to her again.

"Uh, Jim…"

Jim either didn't hear or choose not to pay any attention. "Acting Captain Spock has marooned me on Delta Vega in what I believe to be a violation of security protocol 49.09, governing the treatment of prisoners aboard a st-"

"Jim!" said Ashley, a bit more forcefully, as she reached out and grabbed his shoulder, stopping him from going forward.

"What?" asked Jim, in irritation.

"I think we're in trouble."

Whatever smart retort Jim was prepared to make instantly died when he heard the same sound which had greeted Ashley's ears.

Above the wind and stinging snow, they could now clearly make out the loud,moaning how that was slicing through the air, along with the heavy sounds of crunching snow and crashing ice. They immediately knew that only one thing could make noises such as that: something big, something really, really big. And it was coming closer.

Through the wall of snow, they began to see an even larger, whiter shape. Seconds later, the outline solidified into an immense creature. Easily five times the size of the polar bears of earth, with a face which bore an unsettling resemblance to a huge rat in it's elongated snout and long, sharp teeth, the beast was running towards them.

Whether it had been tracking them for sometime or had only just now caught scent them, didn't matter. Finding food in a frozen wasteland such as this was difficult under the best of circumstances. In this blinding snowstorm, any good predator take any chance they could get.

It was coming after them.

The instinct of fight or flight was still powerfully in human beings. At this moment, both Jim and Ashley knew they had only option: flight. They both turned and started running as fast they could. But for every stride that they made, the white creature took four. The wind was against them, as well, making their progress all the more impossible to measure

Jim suddenly lost his footing, falling on the ice. Ashley paused and looked back anxiously, but Jim had already scrambled to his feet, and was racing to join her. But, they had lost valuable ground. The bear-rat thing was on them again. They kept running, but they could almost feel the breath from the creature's mouth as it bit at their heels.

They were only a few seconds from getting eaten, when they ice behind them suddenly burst apart. The force of the ice shattering sent them both tumbling once more. Looking behind them, they were met by a sight that was both disturbing and horrible. They had thought the bear-rat was big; it was minuscule compared to the huge, red-skinned and spidery clawed legs of the beast who had inadvertantly saved them.

If the hope had passed through their minds that their problem was at least temporarily solved, it didn't last. The new threatseemed only interested in viciously shaking the white bear-rat in it's jaws, before tossing it aside into a nearby snowdrift. It then turned it's wicked head in the direction of Ashley and Jim. It opened it's mouth, revealing row upon row of sharp teeth and multiple sticky tongues that writhed and lashed like sentient worms. It roared, and Ashley blanched at the horrible smell and slimy liquid which issued from the mouth, coating them and the surrounding snow.

They didn't stick around to try and find a way around this new threat. They kept running. And running. And running. Ashley didn't know how long the chase lasted. Was it merely for a few hundred feet or a few miles through the endless snowy terrain, the lobster-spider constantly staying a mere few feet from finishing them off.

It was snowing so hard and they were so focused on staying away that neither of them even saw the abrupt drop off directly in their path. They ran straight over, and were immediately rolling down the hill of hard packed snow and ice. Ashley knew it was only by a sheer miracle that they were able to avoid getting their brains bashed in by a stray mound of ice or snow.

The lobster-spider paused at the lip of the cliff, roaring in frustration that it's meal had been stolen by it from such underhanded means. However, even a monster it's size didn't seem to want to risk the pursuit, until one of it's heavy, clawed feet stepped wrong, causing the snow to give out. The lobster-spider now joined them in a plunge down the embankment.

Ashlley and Jim finally made a hard landing on a sheet of thick ice. Both of them were winded, panting for breath and nearing utter exhaustion. They both knew there was no way they could continue on like this for much longer. Unfortunately, the lobster-spider coming down behind them only seemed to have been more maddened by the tumble down the cliff-side.

They were already starting to run away as it landed behind them, but the lobster-spider seemed to need no moment of recovery, but with yet another harsh roar of anger, it continued the chase, more determined than ever, it seemed, to get it's troublesome prey into it's jaws if it was the last thing it ever did.

Just when Ashley was ready to simply give up, turn around and go down with at least something resembling a fight, Jim suddenly yelled something over the sound of the storm and gestured wildly off to the side. Ashley glanced over and for the first time, she felt a small sense of hope. There was a small cave coming up. If they could just get to it without being turned into the main course, they might be able to get some shelter.

Turning on an extra burst of speed, Ashley and Jim dashed into the cave's main entrance. But, the medusa-like lobster wasn't going to let something as absurd as being too small for the doorway stop it from claiming his prey. The huge red body burst through the entrance, ice crystals and shards of heavy snow flying in all directions. The slippery conditions under foot and the limited room for dodging in the cave made them both realize that they had been backed into an almost literal corner.

And no sooner had that thought crossed their minds than the lobster-spider finally came close enough to use it's long sticky tongue to catch Jim around the ankle, and begin to draw him towards its open jaws.

Ashley stopped and screamed, "Jim!"

"Ashley, run! Damn it, run!" Jim cried back to her, as the creature kept reeling him towards its huge, toothy maw.

Ashley was not about to run, but before she could do anything else, she sensed it. Ever since she had landed on this planet, all she would have been able to wield was snow and ice, but now she felt the small ball of intense heat behind her, a heat that could only mean one thing: fire.

She whirled around, and saw a figure coming towards her. The light was still bad in the cave and she could make out nothing beyond the fact that the figure was a man and looked humanoid. She didn't stop to question what someone was doing on a planet like this in the middle of nowhere, but at the moment, she didn't care. All she did care about was that the figure was carrying a torch.

Ashley's next reaction was purely on instinct. She held up one hand and called part of the fire on the torch to her hand. The fire ball she formed wasn't quite as large as she would have liked, but she hoped it would be enough for hr to maintain it long enough to scare that thing away. She turned back to the creature and hurled a fire ball at it. It landed on the creature's head and it let out a squeal of pain and fright, rearing back and dropping Jim. Jim scrambled away as fast as he was able, and the figure behind her darted forward to shield Jim from the creature, waving his torch back and forth in its face.

The very idea of heat seemed to frighten the creature, as it retreated under the torch and repeated fire balls Ashley was aiming at it. Ashley, however, wanted to be absolutely sure that the lobster-spider thing wouldn't try to come back. She followed it to the mouth of the cave, continuing to launch fire balls at it from her dwindling perception of the reaction.

Once the creature was beyond the mouth of the cave, Ashley dispelled the fire. Standing right on the edge between the relative shelter of the cave and the still howling winds of the storm, she held out the hands on both sides of her, reaching out to the ice walls. With all her mental strength, she began to pull the edges of the cave mouth towards her.

For many long moments, the ice refused to budge, but slowly, inch by inch, the began to close in. Just as the lobster-spider was coming back for a second round, Ashley was able to duck back into the cave, sealing it off from the threat outside.

Silence fell upon the cave. No one moved or said anything. The lingering cold from the storm, and the unexpected stress of the chase had left both Jim and Ashley breathing hard and sore. But, Ashley was suddenly overcome by a wave of dizziness. She stumbled backwards, tripping on the slick ground and falling heavily to her knees.

Jim hurried over to her and knelt down. "Hey, Ashley, you all right?"

Ashley's entire world was spinning. Despite the cold, she could feel sweat running down her body underneath her coat. Nonetheless, she forced herself to nods. "Yeah, I'll be fine in a few minutes. I still drain my powers to easily when I cast with two elements like that. "

As Ashley leaned against Jim for support, they both remembered that they were not alone in the cave. They both turned to stare at their mysterious rescuer. He was quite tall, dressed in the same style of heavy winter gear that they were. In the chaos of the skirmish, his hood has fallen, and in the light of the torch, his face was revealed to them.

He was Vulcan, which was something of a relief. Better to find a species that would be friendly to them rather than a wild, crazy guy who lived in this sort of place for fun. What was strange that he was a great deal older than they had at first thought. Their minds came back to the question they had had when they first saw him: what was a Vulcan his age doing on a planet like Delta Vega?

Strangest of all, was that the more they looked at him, the more they couldn't help but feel that there was something intensely familiar about this particular Vulcan. They just weren't able to say what.

However, such confusion of familiarity was not a problem for the Vulcan. No sooner did he lay eyes on Jim, than he proclaimed, in a voice that held more than a little astonishment, "James T. Kirk."

The name was spoken with such familiarity, such… well, warmth, that it shocked them both. "How do you know my name?" Jim asked.

"How did you find me?" The Vulcan asked.

"How do you know my name?" Jim repeated, a little freaked out by the way the Vulcan was staring at him.

The Vulcan paused, as he seemed to consider the best way to phrase his next words. "I have been, and always shall, your friend."

"I beg your pardon?" said Ashley, who was still trying to catch her breath, but was just as mystified as Jim as to who this stranger was.

"No, I don't know you." Jim insisted.

However, the next thing that the Vulcan said was completely unexpected. "I am Spock."

There were several seconds of silence, as both Ashley and Jim stared at the Vulcan who claimed to be Spock in speechless shock. At last, Jim spoke, and the one word he uttered seemed to sum up their mutual reaction rather perfectly. "Bullshit."

Before the conversion could go any further, Ashley had another attack of dizziness and nausea. Jim supported her anew, a worried expression on his face. "Look, I don't really know if I believe you, but I think if you were going to hurt us, you would have done it by now. Could we save this for later? Ashley here needs some help."

The older version of Spock seemed to stare at them for a few moments, before he nodded. "Come with me, then." He said, "I have set up a shelter a little further into the cave. We should be safer there."

Jim needed to support Ashley as she struggled to her feet. She had started to shiver, and was struggling to stay awake. She had no idea how any of this was possible. An older Spock from the future, who claimed to be bosom pals with Jim, who the younger Spock had hated to such a degree that he had thrown them both off the _Enterprise_? It was enough to give her a headache, and that was one physical symptom that she didn't need right now.

The universe had thrown her and Jim so many curve balls over the last day. She couldn't imagine what the next one would be. Until then, she could only keep moving forward.


	18. Trust and Truth

Trust and Truth:

Leonard watched the infuriating Vulcan retreat from their so-called conversation, and it took every inch of his self-restraint to not go after him, and slap his across the face. Such a response was hardly logical, and even Leonard knew that it would have been a childish display, but it would have felt good.

Scowling at no one in particular, he quickly left the bridge and entered the turbo-lift. He needed to get away from Vulcans before he lost what little was left of his sanity. Irately, he barked for the lift to start taking him to sickbay. As the lift began to move, he sagged against the wall, for a moment letting his exhaustion overtake him.

This had quite possibly been the worst day of his life, and that was saying something. Every event had only seemed to confirm the nightmares he still had about deep space travel: disasters of planetary proportions, enemies with weapons that they couldn't hope to defend against, more people hurt and hurting than he had the will or manpower to help.

Leonard wasn't even sure of the last time he had been able to sit down or even eat something. He hadn't even seen Danielle since the meeting which had ended in her brother getting thrown off the _Enterprise_. In this rare moment of quiet, he felt himself aching for her presence. He was worried about her, knowing all too well that she was more than capable of working herself into an even greater state of exhaustion than he was.

Unbidden, he felt himself remembering a conversation they had shared a year before. He had been in the midst of a challenge which he had still not seen the end of, and she had been the only one who could have helped him see the way forward.

It happened one evening when Leonard and Jim had returned to their room at the Academy, only to discover that Danielle was waiting for them. Ordinarily, this wouldn't have been anything unusual, especially as Leonard and Danielle were dating regularly at the time. However, the expression on her face, angry and troubled, were all the indication that Leonard and Jim needed to know that this was no simple social call.

Jim was the first to rush up to Danielle. "Danni, what's wrong? Are you alright? Did something happen to you?"

"Jim, don't worry. I'm fine. But, Margaret's just paid me a visit, in person this time."

"Margaret's contacted you again?" said Leonard, hearing his tone tighten with wariness.

Danielle nodded, her own troubled expression mirroring Leonard's own. She looked around the hallway, and said, "I don't think we should talk about this in the hallway, let's get inside."

As they went inside, Jim asked, "What are you two talking about? Are we talking about the same Margaret who also happens to you be your ex, Bones?"

"One and the same, I'm afraid." said Leonard, grimly. "She started pesterin' Danielle a few months back, leavin' her messages and calls every few days. They weren't that long, at first. But lately, they've been getting longer and more demanding."

"She's upped the ante on this particular occasion." said Danielle, as she sat down somewhat wearily in the couch. "I just ran into her as I was crossing the campus."

"She got onto the Academy grounds?" Leonard demanded, "Why the hell didn't anyone stop her?"

"Leonard, most of the Academy grounds are open to civilians. Don't worry, I let security know and they're going to keep an eye on her, but unless she does something to directly threaten me, I don't even know how much they'll be able to do to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"What does she even want?" Jim asked, "Don't tell me she's pulling the "stay away from ex husband because I secretly want him back" routine?"

Danielle shook her head. "No, I don't think it's that. Nothing in her behavior suggests jealousy. In fact, most of the time, she asks me very pointed questions about Joanna. She wants to know every little detail about her time with you, Leonard. She wants to know where you go and who you see with her. It's almost as if she thinks the time she spends with you is hurting her."

"Oh, come on, that's ridiculous." said Jim, emphatically. "Bones, your the best dad Joanna could ask for, and it Margaret has any objections, just let her try to make them stick. There's no way she could use anything against you."

"Jim, there's no need to get overexcited about this." said Danielle, attempting to soothe her brother's desire to protect his friend. "It's most likely just another symptom of Margaret's need to assert control over every aspect of Leonard's life. I'm sure it's nothing that Leonard and I can't handle on our own."

"All right, all right." said Jim, "But, if Margaret does absolutely anything to either of you, I will be giving her a few words, and it won't be pretty. Look, I'll leave you two alone. I'm sure that you need to work off some stress."

Danielle groaned and Leonard glared at Jim as he headed for the door. "Do you have to turn everything into innuendo?"

"Hey, I don't have to do anything. When it comes to the two of you, it practically writes itself."

Once they were alone, Leonard turned and looked at Danielle. "You think you could diagnose him with something that would get him out of our hair?"

Danielle smiled and laughed a little. "Even if I could do that, I'm not sure it would work. Knowing my brother, he would probably do something to annoy us even from a hundred miles away."

"I guess you're right." He glanced over at her, a serious mood eclipsing the few seconds of levity. "There's more, isn't there?"

"What do you mean?" asked Danielle, after a moment's pause.

"I think you know. There's something else that Margaret's been on your case about, something that you don't want to tell me, especially not with Jim in the room."

Danielle took a deep breath and shifted in her seat to look directly at him. "Leonard, on top of everything else with Joanna, she keeps asking me very pointed questions about your father."

Leonard felt a chill skate down his spine, an emotion that he could only accurately describe as dread. "My dad, huh? I should have known that she wouldn't let that rest for very long. What's she been asking for exactly?"

Danielle shook her head. "She's prodding for whatever information she can get about what happened around the time he died. I don't think she knows exactly what she's looking for, but she seems to think there's something."

He was silent for a moment, regarding her with what he hoped wasn't suspicion. "Have you told her anything?"

She looked almost offended that he would even ask such a question. "Of course not. I'm not going to tell Margaret of all people your secrets."

"But you've got questions. Be honest, Danielle, I haven't really told you any of the details about my dad's death, or the part I played in it. You don't think that Margaret would try and take advantage of it to try and drive us apart."

"Do you really think so little of my trust in you, Leonard?" Danielle asked sharply, "I'm not your ex-wife, Leonard. We all have secrets, and I know that whatever you went through, you would tell me when you were ready. I would never have held what you did in the past against you, not when I know the kind of man that you are now."

Immediately, Leonard felt a stab of shame. How many times had he promised himself that he would treat Danielle differently than Margaret? She had deserved so much better than him. How she even managed to stick around with him was nothing short of a miracle.

"I'm sorry." He said, softly, as he sat down beside her. "It's just... I'm afraid, Danielle. I've always been afraid from the start, that if I told you the truth, you wouldn't be so understanding. I love you, and the thought of losing you is something that I really can't see myself accepting."

"Leonard, I'm not asking you to tell me anything tonight. I know that you'll tell me when you're ready."

Leonard couldn't help but laugh bitterly. "If we wait for that, than we'll never get this out in the open. I have to tell you now. I just don't think that you're going to like it."

"You don't suppose that you could let me be the judge of that, could you?" Danielle asked.

Leonard needed to take a few moments to compose his next words. He knew he wasn't the most eloquent of people. Right now, he needed to get his words right.

"You remember what I told you about my dad's death death?" Danielle nodded. He continued in a voice that was so soft, he was surprised she could even hear it. "I wasn't actually entirely truthful with you. I said that he was sick, but that wasn't what killed him in the end. It was me. I killed him."

She did hear it, though. She heard every word, and the firs visible reaction on her face which he could recognize was honest confusion. "What do you mean by that? Unless…" It seemed to hit her in a flash, as she began to understand. "You did something, didn't you, to ease his passing?"

Leonard nodded. "He was in so much pain. You can't know what it was like. I sat at his bedside day after day, I watched him struggle with the most basic necessities. There were times he could barely eat or sleep, some days when he couldn't even function. At first, he tried to be strong. He showed me and the rest of the family that he was laughing through it, that it was nothing. But, eventually, it got to be to much, even for him."

Reliving those memories was agonizing. He felt the same helplessness he had felt during those long hours of sitting by his father's bedside, the burden of watching the man he had admired more than anyone else slip away while he was powerless to do anything to reverse it. Over the years, he had done every possible thing he could to avoid facing those memories, memories he had never fully made peace with.

"I tried to find a cure, you know. Every spare minute I had, I studied everything I could about his disease, tested every theory. I was obsessed." He laughed, the sound bitter and hollow. "This was right around the time when Joanna was born. Perhaps Margaret was somewhat justified in managing to keep Joanna with her during the divorce."

He looked over at Danielle, becoming fully aware of her presence for the first time since he had started the story. "I failed him, Danielle. There was nothing I could do, except one thing: I could help him die.

"One day, just out of the blue, he asked me to let him die. I didn't know what he was asking at first, or if he meant for me to let him go and stop wasting my life on finding an impossible cure. But what he was really asking was a whole lot worse. He actually wanted to just die, because he couldn't fight any longer.

"I tried to convince him that this wasn't the way, but he begged me, Danielle. Somehow, he made me see things his way. Or maybe, I just couldn't stand to see him suffer anymore. If I couldn't end it, I might as well stop it." He paused for a moment, the emotions welling to deep inside of him to give voice to his next words. But he couldn't keep silent on this any longer, not with Danielle. "I was the one who shut off his life support. I watched him take his last breath. I watched him die."

This was the part he had been dreading. He thought he would see her recoil, her voice sharp with accusation and disappointment when she questioned as to how he could have done such a thing. But there was none of that when he looked into her face. Indeed, the only thing he saw was tears in her eyes, tears of compassion and sympathy. And when she spoke to him, it was in a quiet, gentle voice. "Was it peaceful? Was it what he wanted?"

Leonard was a bit taken aback by this question, and he found once again with surprise that Danielle had listened to the same story he had told himself many times, but had found a completely different meaning, that was probably where the real heart of the matter had been all along.

"You know, I've been asking myself that same question for what seems like years. I can't help but think if he were in his right mind, he wouldn't have wanted to go the way he did, especially if he had known that less than a year later, a cure would have been discovered."

"I can't imagine what that must have been like for you, Leonard."

"Damn right it was hard!" Leonard growled, though not in anger, more from a sort of emotional exhaustion. He had lived with this for far to long, and he was only now beginning to realize just how much it had been holding him back. "Any hope that I could salvage my marriage pretty much evaporated after that. I just couldn't do anything to keep my mind off it. I kept dwelling on it, over and voer. I had failed everyone I cared about, and the worst thing was, I don't know if I would have been able to do anything different."

He sagged against the back of the couch, beginning to feel exhausted from the telling of the story he had kept buried inside of himself for so long. "Well, there's not much else to say. Margaret and I divorced, and I was left with next to nothing. For a few months, I basically just wandered, with no particular goal in mind. Somehow, I wound up on that transport to Starfleet in the shipyard that day, and I met you."

He was looking straight at her when he said this, remembering when he had seen the young woman with the cornflower blue eyes refusing to be rebuffed by his gruff exterior. She had seen that he was hiding so much pain behind his behavior, but she hadn't dismissed him as a hopeless case. Somehow, she had seen potential, and had followed through with it. "You saved me that day, you know. If it hadn't been for you, I probably would ended up in a worse place. The past two years we've been together, they've been the happiest of my life. I should have told you this a long time ago. I was afraid."

Out of everything he had said, this was the first thing which seemed to take her completely by surprise. "What do you mean? Why were you afraid?"

"I don't have any justification for my actions. I was responsible for killing my own father. I don't expect you to forgive me for something like that."

Danielle just stared at him in surprise, then she did something that caught him completely off-guard: she began to laugh. Had Leonard not been struck dumb, he probably would have exclaimed in outrage. How on earth could she be laughing after everything he had told her? What he didn't know was that Leonard's story had touched her deeply, just not in the way which he had expected. In her mind, the very idea that Leonard would think she needed to forgive him was s ludicrous, she had no other logical reaction.

"Me, forgive you?" She said, through her laughter. "What makes you think that I need to forgive you, for anything? Leonard, don't you see? You don't need my forgiveness. You need to know how to forgive yourself. I can't know if what you did was right or wrong. Only you can do that."

"I'm a doctor, Danielle. I'm supposed to preserve life, not take it away."

"This isn't really about that. When you helped your father die, you weren't doing it as a doctor. You did it as a son. That's what you need to make peace with."

For a long moment, Leonard stared at her in shock. Finally, he shook his head, and allowed himself the first real smile he had allowed himself since the evening began. "How did I do anything to deserve you?"

Once again, it seemed as though Danielle really didn't understand what he was saying. "What do you mean?"

"I've been running from this for such a long time,and every time I tried to work my way through it, I kept running into walls that I couldn't tear down. You come along, and help me to find the door that's been right in front of me all along."

Danielle seemed a little embarrassed by the praise. "Did you honestly think that I would hate you because of this?"

"Sounds silly when you put it like that." Leonard admitted. He put his arm around her and pulled her in to rest against his chest. It was strange. The crippling fear he had been carrying with no longer had a stranglehold on him. He had grown so used to living with it; finally being able to let go of it was going to take some getting used to. That didn't mean for a moment, however, that he would have changed it for the world.

"We still need to figure out what Margaret is up to." said Danielle, at last. "I don't trust that we haven't heard the last of her."

"If she really is aimin' to get full custody of Joanna. We may have quite a fight on our hands. I still don't understand why it's so sudden."

"If she thinks she can take your daughter away from you, she'll have to go through me first."

Leonard Laughed. "I'm bettin' on you, sweetheart, all the way." He became serious, and looked down at her, his voice tender. "Thank you, Danielle. I can't imagine what my life would be like if you weren't with me."

Danielle smiled. "I've waited to long for someone like you, Leonard McCoy. I'll be damned if I let you slip away now."

"I'm not goin' anywhere, darlin'. I'm afraid your stuck with me."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

Leonard came back to the present moment with a start. He was no longer in the apartment in San Francisco, holding Danielle in his arms. He was riding a turbolift in the middle of a damaged star ship, in the wake of a terrible disaster. He and Danielle might as well have been on separate planets considering the duties which they needed to do in order to keep people alive and sane in the midst of a deadly and uncertain situation.

He paused the turbolift, suddenly feeling as though he needed a moment to collect his thoughts. After that night, he had gradually started to come to some sort of acceptance of what he had done to his father. He wasn't close to healing completely; that would take more time than even he might have been anticipating. Nonetheless, he wouldn't have even gotten this far if it hadn't been for Danelle's help.

He resumed his ride on the turbolift, though changing his ultimate destination. He decided it was time for he and Danielle to reconnect, if only for a few seconds. He was certain, just like him, that she had put off eating for the sake of trying to help as many people as she could. Though the main mess hall had been damaged from the attack of the Romulan ship, there was still some sort of commissary setup close by her quarters.

She probably needed to talk to someone as badly as he had needed to do once. He and Danielle had faced so many challenging moments together. If they were going to get through this, they would need to rely on each other as much as they possibly could.

* * *

 **Please read and review.**

 **Next chapter: The present and future begin to merge as Ashley and Jim finally get the full story from an elderly Spock, who claims that the destinies of all involved just might have gotten a whole lot more complicated.**


	19. Merging of Paralells

A Merging of Parallel:

When Ashley awoke, many hours had passed. Above her, she could see darkness reflected in a distorted mirror through the thick, though clear ice. Vaguely, she could hear the faint roar of the wind outside the ice cavern which they had taken shelter in. She was lying on a blanket, and there was a fire in front of her, which served to bring some much needed light and heat to the cold conditions of the cave.

The first sight which greeted her was Jim sitting across from her, sitting on a small outcropping of ice. "Hey, glad to see you finally waking up. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I think so." She rose to a sitting position, and stretched her cramped muscles experimentally. She still felt slightly woozy, but the ground underneath her no longer felt like it was spinning in crazy circles. That was something she was grateful for. "How long was I asleep?"

"About four hours." said Jim, as he handed her a bottle of water, that he had fished out from one of the survival packs they had taken from the escape pods. Eagerly, she grabbed for it and gulped down half the liquid. "That Vulcan guy is still hanging around. Went off a few minutes ago to scout around, or something."

"So, you still don't think it's Spock?" questioned Ashley.

Jim sighed. "I really don't know, Ashley. Before today, I would have said definitely not. But, we also just saw a planet being blown up by a homicidal Romulan from an alternate future time line. At this point, I'll be ready to believe anything."

"But if he is Spock, the same Spock who kicked you off the Enterprise, why was he so glad to see you, even if he is supposedly from the future? I almost thought he would give you a hug when he first saw you. He looked about as happy as a Vulcan could be."

"Don't ask me." said Jim.

Their conversation was interrupted by the return of the elder Spock. "The storm has died down. And there are no signs of aggressive life forms. I believe we are safe for the time being." Seeing that Ashley was sitting up, he said, "It is good to see you have recovered, Lieutenant Pike."

"He asked while you were asleep." Jim said, "He said that your presence here is curious."

"Okay," said Ashley, looking back over at Spock, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"I do not necessarily believe it is bad." said Spock, "As Jim said, curious is truly the best way to describe it. You see, in my own time, the Captain Pike that I knew did not have a daughter."

"Well, my dad is Captain Christopher Pike, just in case you doubted it."

"No, you are most certainly his daughter." said Spock, as he looked long and hard at her. "No one could mistake the resemblance. However, I do have a question. Jim tells me that you were able to control the fire and ice from earlier with nothing but your mind. How were you able to do such a thing?"

"It's nothing all that special, really. I'm hardly the only Deviant who can control elements like that." She saw a flicker of puzzlement and confusion pass over Spock's face. "Do you not know what a Deviant is?"

"No. In my timeline, those who have such abilities as your's are the exception rather than the norm. It seems that this timeline is more different from my own than I at first anticipated. However, that is a conversation for another time." He sat down by the fire, and stirred the flames so that they generated more heat. "It is incredibly agreeable to see you both, especially you, my old friend." The last part of the statement was directed towards Jim, and spoken with the same warmth of tone that he had used when he first recognized him. "Especially after the events of today."

While the two of them could maybe understand a person's need for companionship after they had witnessed the destruction of their homeworld, Spock seemed to be treating this reunion a great deal more warmly than they would have expected. "Look, sir," said Jim, "I appreciate what you did for me and Ashley earlier, but if you are Spock, you would know that we're not friends. You hate me. You marooned me and Ashley here for mutiny."

"Mutiny?" questioned Spock, surprised. "You are not the Captain?"

"No, you're the, uh, Captain." said Jim, feeling slightly silly for talking about Spock as though he were in two different places at once, which he was, admittedly.

"My dad promoted him to Captain." said Ashley, who was having some difficulty forming the words. The worry she was feeling over the fate of her father had by no means dissipated, nor had her anger against Spock for his refusal to go after him. Well, she technically found herself angry at the Spock who was on the Enterprise. The Spock who was now sitting in front of her was producing nothing but confusion. "He did it right before he was taken hostage."

"By Nero." said Spock, gravely.

The mention of the psychotic Romulan captured their attention. "What, do you know about him?" Jim asked.

Spock didn't answer right away, and Ashley saw an expression of pain and guilt appear on the Vulcan's face. His voice sounded heavy and burdened. "He is a remarkably troubled Romulan."

"That's putting it rather mildly." muttered Ashley, before seeing that Spock had stood up, and was coming towards the two of them his hands outstretched. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Please, allow me." said Spock, "It will be easier." He reached towards the two of them, clearly intending to touch their faces with his fingertips. Understandably, Ashley and Jim backed up a few paces. But after seeing the pleading look in the depths of the Vulcan's eyes, they relented and allowed Spock to place his fingers on their cheeks and temples. "Our minds… one and together."

Ashley had heard a few things about Vulcan mind melds. Danielle had written an extensive and detailed report on the practice during her first year at the Academy, and as the two of them had lived together, it had been difficult to avoid learning something of the infamous Vulcan telepathic technique. Being linked to the mind of a Vulcan had always struck her as a remarkably boring idea. What could a species that repressed their emotions possibly have to share with each other?

The reality was far different from any preconception she had ever held. The moment that her mind opened up to Spock's, she was inundated with images and emotions. The images were an odd mixture of intensely sharp clarity and blurry outlines. The emotions, on the other hand, were so powerful that Ashley was hardly able to comprehend them. Those emotions were not coming from Jim, though she could vaguely sense his confusion and unease; they were coming from Spock.

And Spock was speaking to them both in their minds, narrating the events which they were witnessing. "One hundred and twenty nine years from now, a star will explode and threaten to destroy the galaxy."

As Spock spoke, Ashley suddenly had an image of a massive star, glowing red and angry from within; a star at the end of its life. There was a blinding explosion as it imploded.

"That is where I'm from, Jim. The future. A star went supernova. Consuming everything in its path."

There was an image of Spock standing amongst a few other Vulcans, discussing the best plan to take in the face of this crisis. Then, a small, white ship with a strange whirling propulsion engine suddenly zoomed across deep space, heading for a planet that Ashley recognized as Romulas.

"I promised the Romulans I would save their planet. We outfitted our fastest ship. Using red matter, I would create a black hole which would destroy the exploding star."

Ashley saw what looked like a containment hold within the belly of the ship she had just seen moments before. The Vulcans were building a chamber that could contain the red matter. Within it's very center, she saw a single, red drop suspended and floating. It looked small, but she knew from Spock's stray thoughts, that that one small drop had enough power to destroy entire worlds in the blink of an eye.

"I was en-route when the unthinkable happened."

For the past few minutes, Ashley had felt Spock's churning emotions, but she had also sensed that he was doing his best to control them. But when the next image appeared, she was flooded with the horror he had felt upon witnessing the home planet of the Romulans literally being swallowed up by the fires of the approaching supernova. She heard herself gasp, and felt the tears beginning to sting her eyes. It was as though Spock were feeling the death of every single Romulan on that planet, a population of billions destroyed because he had failed to reach his goal in time.

"The supernova destroyed Romulus. I had little time. I had to extract the red matter and shoot it into the supernova. As I began my return trip, I was intercepted."

Spock's tiny Vulcan ship was no match against the might of Nero's own ship. Nero had announced himself to Spock via the latter's view screen, his face a mask of rage and despair.

"He called himself Nero, the last of the Romulan Empire. In my attempt to escape, both of us were pulled into the black hole. Nero went through first. He was the first to arrive."

Ashley could feel Jim's sudden understanding when Spock said this, and she saw an image of Nero's ship coming through the black hole and pouncing upon the USS Kelvin, the attack which had killed his father.

"Nero and his crew spent the next 25 years awaiting my arrival. But what was years for Nero was only seconds for me. I went through the black hole. Nero was waiting for me."

Nero had tractored Spock's ship into the hanger bay of his own vessel, and Spock had been forced to witness a truly horrific sight.

"He captured my vessel and spared my life. For one reason, so that I would know his pain."

The last image was by far the worst of all, and it caused Ashley to completely break down. Spock was standing on a high bluff of Delta Vega, which offered an unobstructed view of Vulcan being utterly annihilated. Ashley had thought she couldn't be more horrified by the loss of Vulcan. The loss of life and the history which had been forever destroyed would be staying with her forever.

But any grief she may have felt from a distance was nothing compared to seeing it through the eyes of one of its children. Spock's emotions were beyond control at this point, and the tidal wave of grief, despair and guilt was overpowering to her.

"He beamed me here so that I could observe his vengeance. As he was helpless to save his planet, I would be helpless to save mine. Billions of lives lost, because of me, Jim." In Spock's mind, he carried the guilt of failure not only in the present, but in the past as well. It was a wound from which he would never recover, a burden that he would never be free of. "Because I failed."

The mind meld abruptly ended. Ashley couldn't stay upright, stumbling backward until her back was against the wall. She sagged there, suddenly feeling emotionally exhausted. Her cheeks were wet and she made no attempt to try and hide it. Jim was no less affected than she was, stumbling a few steps away to try and gain control of himself. His breathing was short and shallow, and his own eyes bore the signs of sobbing he hadn't been fully aware of until that moment.

They had both just experienced the mind of a Vulcan; they would never be able to think of them in quite the same way ever again.

"Forgive me." said Spock, regretfully as he observed their trauma, "Emotional transference is an effect of the mind meld.

"So you do feel?" said Jim, sympathy coloring his words, as well as honest surprise.

"Yes." said Spock, after a pause.

"Do you… do you always feel emotions like that, all the time?" Ashley asked.

There was a pause, almost as though Spock was finding it difficult to answer. At last, he said, in a quiet voice, "Few of us are that perfectly Vulcan.

Ashley stared at Spock, feeling an odd sense of shame. "I never knew…" She tried to say, "I never realized or even thought…" She couldn't finish. She had never thought that feeling emotions intensely could be a bad thing. Maybe, the Vulcans really did have a reason for keeping their emotions under such tight control, to seek logic in everything.

"Going back in time, you changed all our lives." said Jim, as he finally came back towards them. He was bit more controlled, but still shaken.

There was a pause, before Spock said, "Jim, we must go."

"Go? Go where?" asked Ashley.

"There is a Starfleet outpost, not far from here."

"Wait." said Jim, stopping Spock. His voice was slightly uncertain. The question which he had asked was one that he had always wanted to know: would his father have been proud of the man he was trying to become? Maybe Spock didn't know the answer to that, but he couldn't let the opportunity go by without asking. "Where you came from… did I know my father?"

Spock stared long and hard at Jim, before he finally answered, "Yes. You often spoke of him as being your inspiration for joining Starfleet."

Jim could hardly believe this. He couldn't help but wonder what would have been different if his father had lived. Would his path have been the same? And yet, he had to admit that in a way, his father had inspired him to joining Starfleet. He had wanted too try and live up to this memory. Perhaps, the similarity between two different time lines was more apparent than it was at first glance.

"He proudly lived to see you become Captain of the _Enterprise_."

Jim, who had been lost in his thoughts, looked up at Spock when he said this, making no attempt to hide his surprise. "Captain?"

"A ship we must return you to as soon as possible." said Spock, as he turned around and headed off deeper into the caverns.

Jim and Ashley looked at each other wordlessly for a few seconds. In just a few minutes, they had experienced a profound change of view, in more ways than one way. In the merging between the parallels of future and past, it seemed as though their very destines were gong to be changing

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Next chapter: In the aftermath of the tragedy, who comforts the one who normally offers the wise advice? In the case of Danielle, in the face of mounting stress, the one person who can best help her, is the one who knows her best.


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